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Teaching academic and organizational skills to your logic stage student


swimmermom3

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I only have two of them, too, LOL. Don't remember now which two.

 

Yes, the notetaking workbook she pulled up is one of the books that I've been using this year. I actually started with the prior one, which I think was graded for 3-5. He just started with the 6-8 book, so I don't know yet if it will prove problematic for us as some others have mentioned.

 

I believe there were also some Remedia Publications outlining books suggested. I used those last year.

 

My main problem with this son is that when we are studying a science or history subject in depth and I try to get him to outline something, he seems to think that he has the descretion to just make an outline of his own thoughts on the matter, rather than following the text he's *supposed* to be outlining. So I was hoping by doing more isolated topics that I could cull some of that out, LOL......

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You know, I have found this one of the hardest things about homeschooling. I can figure out when it is ok to use my own knowlege and/or opinions and when one needs to only use the knowledge given, but I am having a horrible time explaining to my homeschooled-from-first-grade son which to use when. My homeschooled-since-5th-grade son has no trouble. I sympathize with your son. Any suggestions?

-Nan

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Nan and Regena, do you think part of the difficulty lies in the stage of development? We just crossed that border here where my 11yo is able to stick to the facts in his outline. SWB's outlining examples helped him see what he needed to do. On the other hand, my son finds it difficult to rewrite someone else's work without elaborating. I think it is hard for him to differentiate between improving word choices and "improving" content. Since I have seen improvement in the one area, I'm thinking the other will follow.

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I think not. I think in our case, it is a "hit a moving target" problem. In some academic tasks, he is expected to do one and in some, the other, and it is distinguishing between them that is difficult. His French history book is helping with this because its expectations are more clearly labelled. Each history spread consists of an intro paragraph, some primary or close secondary source documents with questions under them, a box with "mise en relation des documents" questions with numbers telling you which documents you are supposed to be using to do the mising en relationing, a set of words that you are supposed to incorporate into a sentence or two summarizing the lecon or a question to research, and a box of vocab and defs. The questions under the documents are meant to be answered using just the info in the document, and the student is meant to put together and infer something from several documents at once in for the mise en relation questions. My son often adds his own prior knowledge to both sorts of questions but he has to include the information given in the document or documents. The dual language situation helps because he usually has trouble saying in French the information he is adding from prior knowledge. This makes it very clear which is which. When he is working out of an English textbook, he has trouble remembering which bits of the knowledge were his own and which came from the material he just read, I think, making it harder for him to give the answer the book is expecting. Another aspect of the problem is giving the right length of answer. If he were to tell all he knew about the subject, then both the prior knowledge and the book knowledge (which he might have already known) would both show up. The problem is that it is difficult to know without years of experience how long an answer each question probably is expecting. I have seen him answer whole problem sets with answers which would be marked wrong even though the information he gave wasn't really wrong. I absolutely hate that I have to teach him to "just answer the question" and to "just repeat back what they just told you even though that seems stupid". I'm taking a real learner and dumbing him down. Ug. I don't know how else to make it so he will survive in college, though, or be able to take the standardized tests to get in. I hate the whole system. And that is probably more than you wanted to know about how we are doing history, but I don't know how else to explain the problem. (I do like our French history book. At least it tries to teach using primary sources, and usually 2 or 3 of the 4 or 6 documents in each lesson are artwork of some sort, and 1 is often a map or diagram.)

-Nan

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Hey I'm reading That Crumples Paper was Due Last Week right now and planing to get started implimenting it Monday.

 

Thanks for the tip off!

 

I'm sure hoping it helps.

 

Although she is clear that we might not see a big improvement for 6 - 12 months.:ohmy: I'll take it.

 

But I have to admit, that exhausts me just to think about. Going through all that every day for who knows how long... worth it when it pays off, but geez.. I'd sure like an app for this instead.:blushing:

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I sympathize, completely, believe me. I'm not sure how to overcome all this save to keep reading over the work, asking if he stuck to what was in the document only, rather than embellishing and, when I see embellishment, pointing that out. I don't do it with every single item, however, as I do feel that I'm stifling him.

I try to alternately let him write pieces that are his completely, and contrast those to pieces where he needs to just summarize what someone else has said.

 

Standardized testing is a whole 'nother beast for this child. He wants to overthink every question. He pulls from every thing in his data bank and sees every possible instance where an answer different than the most obvious might apply. OY!!! Practice and more practice will help, I hope. I do sometimes buy the standardized test practice books and go through them with him just to help him see that the simple answer is usually best. (I have already come to hate multiple choice testing through dealing with it with my older son. I wish professors would actually just allow children to choose whether they wish to take a MC test or an essay exam - but no one wants to take the time to read and grade essay exams any longer.)

 

He's currently playing some sort of listing game as part of a speech therapy program and he can't get the anwers because his are always too complicated. Perhaps I need to buy that game and just go through it with him some at home in order to help him see that there are different ways to approach answering what might seem like an obvious question.....

 

So, sorry not to be any help whatsoever to either of you! I'm sort of just thinking out loud. I think it is a real quandry trying to teach kids to be independent thinkers, but also teaching them that they have to learn how to guess what sort of answer is wanted in different sorts of testing situations.

 

Nan, you said, "When he is working out of an English textbook, he has trouble remembering which bits of the knowledge were his own and which came from the material he just read, I think, making it harder for him to give the answer the book is expecting." And in a way, it seems to me that this is the ideal of all true learning. A person incorporates knowledge so thoroughly that it just belongs to him. He shouldn't really have to recall where each bit came from, unless citations of some sort are necessary. Maybe that would be helpful - to do some work writing papers where one must give citations to where the info came from? I'm not sure.

 

Anyway, if either of you come up with ingenious ways to overcome this without killing joy of learning, please do let me know!

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"He wants to overthink every question. He pulls from every thing in his data bank and sees every possible instance where an answer different than the most obvious might apply." AAARRRRGGGG! This, this is a HUGE problem for us. I think this is what is meant by the "cultural bias" on standardized tests, not words like regatta. I complained about it to a woman in admissions at the community college once, and she said that coming from the Carrib, she hadn't understood multiple choice tests at all. She said it took her quite a while to figure out how to do one "correctly". I was glad to have this confirmed. I think this issue is the biggest downside of doing TWTM. And it ought not to be. UG. I remember my father telling me over and over to play stupid on tests. He said that all the answers would probably seem wrong, but to give the answers that someone stupid would give and it would probably be marked right. It worked pretty well, but I had much more practice with it than my children. I've heard other people say, ones who believe in this sort of tests, that you should pick the "best" answer. That might work, if you explain that by "best" they mean the answer that is closest to being complete. My nightmare is true-false tests. The only way I can take those is to pretend I am the stupid mean boy who lived near me growing up. I had one in high school that was full of things like "True or falst? Blacks have rhythm." How was I supposed to answer that? I took it to the teacher and pointed out how every question was neither true nor false and he let me skip it. I bet he didn't give that test again, either GRIN. Ok - can you tell I find this subject completely frustrating and have for a very long time? Sigh. I agree with you about the ideal of all true learning. That is why I hate this so much. At least I managed to keep from having to give my older son grades. I have similar problems with grades. How are they supposed to take risks, try things they know they might fail at, or try things over and over until they get better at them? Perhaps if I were a very good teacher, with lots of experience, I could come up with a rubric that changed as the child got better at whatever process or skill he was trying to learn, but I am not. Nor do I want to spend my time figuring out grading rubrics. I'd rather just have mine repeat something until they can do it and not worry about trying only to give them things they will be able to do from the beginning. The whole things sounds like a good way to teach people never to attempt anything they might not be instantly good at. People complain all the time about students not learning to be persistant or to take risks. How can they, when they have to worry about grades?

Ok - enough ranting. I am now going to go make valentines. Sigh. At least I've solved the grading problem. If I think of any way of solving the testing problem, I promise I will tell you.

-Nan

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LOL! Happy Valentine's Day! My younger son made us wonderful, well thought out cards this morning. I think it's more valuable that they become real, intelligent people than automatons that our false educational establishment recognizes. Now, hopefully, we will all learn how to make them see that, appreciate that, as they have to move through the college system. I tend to think that finding good, solid learning institutions of higher learning for them might help some with that (we'll see next year, I guess)....

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Well, in the world we're coming into, I'm not so sure that his way will not be the better way, Nan. I just read a news article last week about the top ten projected jobs for the next decade. Six of them are in low paying retail work, as clerks, etc. I think about three others were in health care, but not in technology jobs. One was nursing and I forget what the other two were.

 

Last year, we visited with the head of radiology at a local hospital and he told us that they have been sending out their films overnight to Southeast Asia for reading for about three years now. I've been pondering for the past year what sorts of jobs we're expected to put our children into in the future and asking myself if we will all just work retail, working at selling things to each other and buying things from each other. Things that are made by folks in some other countries. I'm afraid that this recent news report just seems to confirm that this may, indeed, end up being the case.

 

That said, perhaps training up kids who are independent enough thinkers to make, create, a livelihood for themselves is no bad thing. I'm beginning to think that college may end up being just another debt trap that leads to no where.....

 

A report I read a year or so ago indicated that the most in-demand professions of the future will be those people who can actually *do* things, i.e., the plumber, the electrician, the automechanic, etc. And just recently I read another piece about how Americans have all but lost the ability to be "Renaissance" men and women - to be multi-talented, able to create, do, make things with their hands (or repair same).

 

When I think even of my own parents, I always have said that my Dad can do anything. He wired the electricity for our house, which they still live in, 45 years later. He labeled and took apart two antique cabins and reconstructed them on our farm as a guest house. Both of them do wonderful artisanal craft pieces (when they want to, LOL), working in copper as well as numerous other media. My Mother was a vocational home ec teacher and she sews beautifully, has quilted, etc. They refinished most of the antique furniture in their home and cabin. They re-habbed a vacation home in Florida. My Dad takes care of all the vehicles. He sometimes buys vehicles and re-habs, then sells them. They re-did a couple of small campers and then sold them. My Dad used to repair antique clocks. And that's just the tip of the iceburg! I'm sorry I've gone on so, but LOTS of older people were just "naturally" good at a multitude of things..... And none of these things were at all related to our primary family business, which was a grocery store. A typical husband/wife team today would never dream of attempting even one of the things I've mentioned, much less all of them (and more)!

 

So raising up children who can think for themselves, learn for themselves, may not be such a bad thing at all!

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Where shall I begin... I think we have the same parents. Perhaps that is why I find you helpful? About the job stuff, we've thought about it a lot, beginning when we pulled our oldest out of 7th grade, more than 10 years ago, long before my husband's job changed to be more Rennaissance. I have to take the dog for a walk right now, while it is still sunny, before the snow comes, but I will be back because this is something I would really like to talk about. I still feel so ambivalent. Notes to myself for when I come back: coocoo clocks, college and being a sahm, film crews, plumbing, kids' college, friends+spouses, LACs, US engineers, service industries, that film something billion?, inventors, FDA

-Nan

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LOL! Oh, Lisa, see what good topics you post? You've gotten us on a roll now! Who knows where we will stop?

 

Regena, please don't stop. You and Nan have dug deeper and hit a vein that worries me to no end. I think that thriving in the years to come will require a different mindset. Or perhaps as you have mentioned a return to a previously held mindset (at least by other generations). I have been pondering this idea of the "capable" mindset versus the "confident" mindset. As Americans, we have excelled at trying to instill confidence in our children based on few actual accomplishments.

 

Ugh! Another trip to the pool. Now that I know you are back having this discussion, I am brimming with questions. You two have covered so much pertinent ground: teaching to the test, students that over-analyze test questions, and what future skills will be necessary. Rats, now there is a kid honking the horn in the car. Late to practice is unacceptable.:D

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Well, in the world we're coming into, I'm not so sure that his way will not be the better way, Nan. I just read a news article last week about the top ten projected jobs for the next decade. Six of them are in low paying retail work, as clerks, etc. I think about three others were in health care, but not in technology jobs. One was nursing and I forget what the other two were.

 

Last year, we visited with the head of radiology at a local hospital and he told us that they have been sending out their films overnight to Southeast Asia for reading for about three years now. I've been pondering for the past year what sorts of jobs we're expected to put our children into in the future and asking myself if we will all just work retail, working at selling things to each other and buying things from each other. Things that are made by folks in some other countries. I'm afraid that this recent news report just seems to confirm that this may, indeed, end up being the case.

 

That said, perhaps training up kids who are independent enough thinkers to make, create, a livelihood for themselves is no bad thing. I'm beginning to think that college may end up being just another debt trap that leads to no where.....

 

A report I read a year or so ago indicated that the most in-demand professions of the future will be those people who can actually *do* things, i.e., the plumber, the electrician, the automechanic, etc. And just recently I read another piece about how Americans have all but lost the ability to be "Renaissance" men and women - to be multi-talented, able to create, do, make things with their hands (or repair same).

 

When I think even of my own parents, I always have said that my Dad can do anything. He wired the electricity for our house, which they still live in, 45 years later. He labeled and took apart two antique cabins and reconstructed them on our farm as a guest house. Both of them do wonderful artisanal craft pieces (when they want to, LOL), working in copper as well as numerous other media. My Mother was a vocational home ec teacher and she sews beautifully, has quilted, etc. They refinished most of the antique furniture in their home and cabin. They re-habbed a vacation home in Florida. My Dad takes care of all the vehicles. He sometimes buys vehicles and re-habs, then sells them. They re-did a couple of small campers and then sold them. My Dad used to repair antique clocks. And that's just the tip of the iceburg! I'm sorry I've gone on so, but LOTS of older people were just "naturally" good at a multitude of things..... And none of these things were at all related to our primary family business, which was a grocery store. A typical husband/wife team today would never dream of attempting even one of the things I've mentioned, much less all of them (and more)!

 

So raising up children who can think for themselves, learn for themselves, may not be such a bad thing at all!

 

Food for thought, :iagree:

 

I think we are all kidding ourselves to think that things are going to go on as "normal". I have been reevaluating goals for my children and myself lately. :001_smile:

 

:lurk5:

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This is a great thread...

Oh, ya color coding really helped too. Each class has a different color: so the assignment sheet, divider and Cornell notes paper are all the same color for each class.

 

OK....so how do you do this color coding thing? Do you buy colored printer paper and colored dividers and coordinate them? Does printer paper come in enough different colors to even do this? Please forgive me if this is a silly question.

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- Thinking more deeply about literature, instead of just recalling a series of events. I'm hoping this translates to thinking deeper in general. Two Progeny Press guides in 7th really set the stage for this, although I'd say the easier one was the most fruitful. The gentle LL guides this year have also been fruitful, since I've seen him use the terms and ways of thinking in other areas. Cramming too much just caused dislike of the whole thing.

 

Can you tell me which Progeny Press guides you have used? I often think that they look great, but I have a hard time deciding which would work better for a 7th grader who has never done one of these before. Also, what is LL? Is it Lightening Literature?

 

- Vocabulary and re-starting spelling came into play. Ds never needed spelling in elementary school, but he's starting to use some words he doesn't know how to spell, and he's starting to read some words he doesn't know the meaning of. In 7th we started some casual spelling with science words & in 8th we love Caesar's English. I'm not sure if this is in one of your categories, but it's been important these 2 years.

My ds is doing a spelling review this year as well. When he finishes it, I'd like to move him on to some vocabulary. I have vocabulary from the classical roots, but I may look into some MCT stuff.

- The lesson wasn't the taxonomy, the lesson was studying. We talked a lot about different study methods for different folks, and the personal responsibility to figure out what works for you. He's not made miraculous progress, but I think he's closer to being ready for high school.

Great idea. I think I will do this with my ds next science test. He knows the material in a conversational way, but is not always able to retrieve definitions, etc. when he needs to do so.

 

- My new goal I'm working on is getting ds to correct only "part" of something (especially math). He's always just done a re-do, even retyping whole paragraphs, since things have been easy for him. Well, that's just not going to be realistic with high school level work. The only method that's helped so far has been the one day where I gave him the math answer key; then he was interested in seeing where he went wrong, rather than just rewriting the whole problem. I need to figure out more on this.

Interesting, and food for thought. My ds has always honed in on his errors and it drives me crazy when he can't really find it and won't start the problem over from scratch.

 

The biggest lessons I've learned are (1) you have to just dig in and try stuff, (2) kids hear "modeling" better than "lecturing" (I've tried both :) ), and (3) smaller is more successful than bigger. ETA: (4) It's a very gradual process and ds didn't totally change on the first day of 7th grade just because I said so.

I so agree, I was so disappointed in ds' progress this year until I read this paragraph. It is a process isn't it? I started modeling study habits this year as I did my own Bible study (Precept Upon Precept, about 1 hour of work/day) while he was working on school and he really settled down & was able to articulate some things like "I need more room at the table" and so forth. It has been good since Jan.

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After returning from my morning walk, I received a PM that I might find this discussion interesting. Thanks Nan! I do not always wander over to the K-8 board.

 

Well, in the world we're coming into, I'm not so sure that his way will not be the better way, Nan. I just read a news article last week about the top ten projected jobs for the next decade. Six of them are in low paying retail work, as clerks, etc. I think about three others were in health care, but not in technology jobs. One was nursing and I forget what the other two were.

 

Last year, we visited with the head of radiology at a local hospital and he told us that they have been sending out their films overnight to Southeast Asia for reading for about three years now. I've been pondering for the past year what sorts of jobs we're expected to put our children into in the future and asking myself if we will all just work retail, working at selling things to each other and buying things from each other. Things that are made by folks in some other countries. I'm afraid that this recent news report just seems to confirm that this may, indeed, end up being the case.

 

That said, perhaps training up kids who are independent enough thinkers to make, create, a livelihood for themselves is no bad thing. I'm beginning to think that college may end up being just another debt trap that leads to no where.....

 

 

 

Snipping Regena's post. There is a part of me that returns to the old discussion on the purpose of college: a job or education for education's sake. There is enough of my personality that is stuck in an ivory tower to argue the latter; yet I am a sufficient pragmatist whose desires avoidance of massive debt for the sake of that education.

 

Ultimately, I don't think that any of us can truly predict where the jobs will be in ten years or twenty. In fact, I feel uncomfortable attempting to do so and then advising today's students that they should follow a particular path based on someone's predictions of where jobs should be. The argument for a Renaissance education in all things (from books to hands on) plays well for me!

 

Where shall I begin... I think we have the same parents. Perhaps that is why I find you helpful? About the job stuff, we've thought about it a lot, beginning when we pulled our oldest out of 7th grade, more than 10 years ago, long before my husband's job changed to be more Rennaissance. I have to take the dog for a walk right now, while it is still sunny, before the snow comes, but I will be back because this is something I would really like to talk about. I still feel so ambivalent. Notes to myself for when I come back: coocoo clocks, college and being a sahm, film crews, plumbing, kids' college, friends+spouses, LACs, US engineers, service industries, that film something billion?, inventors, FDA

-Nan

 

What a note to self, Nan! I bring it up as a reminder.

 

One of the things that I see though with hands on people is the sense of satisfaction achieved with each project and often the self education that comes with the project. I made an elaborate Valentine for my nephew's daughter--my son told me that he could not believe how many hours were vested in this thing. It began with an online tutorial for making a cloth envelope. The little girl is the right age to work on buttoning skills so I essentially made her a toy for button practice. (See Jane sewing on buttons, making button holes, embroidering hearts, etc.) Even if little niece-let discards Aunt Jane's work, I achieved great personal satisfaction with the project.

 

For someone who sees the world through dollars and cents alone, my project was a waste of time. The same people might find the study of philosophy or English literature to be a waste. So here is the inherent difficulty in the discussion: what is our end goal as adults? Is it all about money? How does happiness enter the equation of our life? There are economists creating new economic models which consider happiness not just Gross Domestic Product. Along those lines, I am very rich indeed. And that is ultimately what I want for my son--happiness, contentment, the ability to sleep well at night with a sense of personal satisfaction and knowing that the right thing was done for others.

 

Oh my--I have not addressed the OPs concerns on organization! Ducking down the rabbit hole and back into my other world on the high school board...

 

Jane

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After returning from my morning walk, I received a PM that I might find this discussion interesting. Thanks Nan! I do not always wander over to the K-8 board.

 

 

 

Snipping Regena's post. There is a part of me that returns to the old discussion on the purpose of college: a job or education for education's sake. There is enough of my personality that is stuck in an ivory tower to argue the latter; yet I am a sufficient pragmatist whose desires avoidance of massive debt for the sake of that education.

 

Ultimately, I don't think that any of us can truly predict where the jobs will be in ten years or twenty. In fact, I feel uncomfortable attempting to do so and then advising today's students that they should follow a particular path based on someone's predictions of where jobs should be. The argument for a Renaissance education in all things (from books to hands on) plays well for me!

 

 

 

What a note to self, Nan! I bring it up as a reminder.

 

One of the things that I see though with hands on people is the sense of satisfaction achieved with each project and often the self education that comes with the project. I made an elaborate Valentine for my nephew's daughter--my son told me that he could not believe how many hours were vested in this thing. It began with an online tutorial for making a cloth envelope. The little girl is the right age to work on buttoning skills so I essentially made her a toy for button practice. (See Jane sewing on buttons, making button holes, embroidering hearts, etc.) Even if little niece-let discards Aunt Jane's work, I achieved great personal satisfaction with the project.

 

For someone who sees the world through dollars and cents alone, my project was a waste of time. The same people might find the study of philosophy or English literature to be a waste. So here is the inherent difficulty in the discussion: what is our end goal as adults? Is it all about money? How does happiness enter the equation of our life? There are economists creating new economic models which consider happiness not just Gross Domestic Product. Along those lines, I am very rich indeed. And that is ultimately what I want for my son--happiness, contentment, the ability to sleep well at night with a sense of personal satisfaction and knowing that the right thing was done for others.

 

Oh my--I have not addressed the OPs concerns on organization! Ducking down the rabbit hole and back into my other world on the high school board...

 

Jane

 

Jane, thanks for stopping by over here. Our rabbit trail is always open.

 

My advice to my son is all theoretical at this point, he's 12, I have no clue what he'll do with his life. However, I was flipping through my writing notes this weekend and happened upon a statement I wrote down months ago, probably after blowing my mind by reading the high school board and even venturing into the college board (where I only lurk, sigh, and then tiptoe out quietly).

 

My note was to remind my ds to pursue his passions in life and don't worry about a "good job" that "pays the bills". Why? Hindsight maybe. I'm 42 and after a few years trying to achieve the status quo I realized (with great anguish) that I still want the same things out of life I did when I was 17. Things I gave up because they weren't "normal" and no one ever told me I could achieve them. No one ever told me to go after what would make me happy and carve out a lifestyle from it. It was always "How are you going to pay your bills, your mortgage?" Maybe I don't want a mortgage. Maybe the sense of wanderlust that still burns in me doesn't want to be tied down to a physical location. (sorry..my own rabbit hole here). My dh has some of the same spirit of regret.

 

:iagree:with the bolded part about the jobs. I've tried to stay forward thinking and my dh used to feel educated on the latest technology. It's advancing so rapidly now who knows what the future holds.

 

We both see people who went after those stable jobs now living a precarious balance of hoping their job is there for the next few years. OTOH I see people who chose to live out their passions being happy, even if they have "less" in the eyes of the status quo. Sigh, I wish my son to be happy...I bolded the part of Jane's post that speaks to me.

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I went and got Jane. She thinks about these things, too.

 

... I just read a news article last week ... I've been pondering for the past year what sorts of jobs we're expected to put our children into ...

 

This aspect of things doesn't worry us too much. Yes, jobs like plumbers and nurses, service industry jobs, are going to be in demand here. That article probably was acurate. But I think there is more to it than that. Have you read the book The World is Flat? If you are worried about this, you might consider it. It is one of those books with too many examples, but you can skim it for the points. Among other things, it says that even if many jobs go overseas, there will still be jobs here at the connecting points, jobs that connect the people overseas to the businesses or consumers or service providers in the US, and jobs that connect those things to our government regulations. For example, my husband knows someone who is living here running an IT business. The workers are in India, but somebody needs to connect those workers to the companies who need their services. My husband helps overseas companies get their products approved by our FDA so they can be sold here, and companies here get their products approved in Europe. An architectural firm may have people overseas doing the drawings, but someone needs to connect them to the customers here and needs to know the customer's local building codes.

 

...perhaps training up kids who are independent enough thinkers to make' date=' create, a livelihood for themselves is no bad thing. [/quote']

 

My husband noticed (after he read about it, I think in that flat world book) that his jobs resemble how a film is made. A group of people, all with different skills, assembles to make a film. When the film is done, they disband and then reassemble in a slightly different combination to make a new film. My husband is an engineer and he and his coworkers assemble and reassemble in small start-up companies to take products from the university-invented-technology stage through to the manufacturable-product stage. At that point, a big company buys the product and rights to the patents and the whole process starts again. Contacts are very important. Parts of this may happen overseas, but plenty of people are working on it here. (Perhaps foreign languages would be a good idea?)

 

We are thinking that perhaps creativity is something that we need to emphasize. My husband excells at out-of-the-box thinking and I am hoping hoping hoping that he has managed to pass some of that on to our children.

 

I'm beginning to think that college may end up being just another debt trap that leads to no where.....

 

Wait' date=' wait, wait... Are you a stay at home mother? I am. I knew in college that I wanted to be one, too. Once I mentioned to my Greek prof that I thought I was probably going to waste my college education staying home. He told me gently but very firmly that I had a right to educate my mind, that that was never a waste. In retrospect, I am glad I confided my worry to a classics prof and not one of my software engineering profs GRIN.

 

Most of those connecting people seem to have college degrees, at least the ones we know of.

 

I happened to pick a major that was part career training, but my sister went to a LAC. She gained even more than just an education. She gained a spouse and a pack of life-long friends. At her college, one third of the students married each other. They all had to be creative about finding jobs when they graduated with their liberal arts degrees and lots of debt. The ones I've talked to are happy with the trade, though. I realize that I am in the minority here on this board, thinking that college is worth some debt and the accompanying sacrifice.

 

That said, I think it depends what you want to do with your life, too. If you want to save the world, then I think you need to make sure you graduate debt-free, or close to it. Or find something to do that will allow you to make lots of money and pay off your debt quickly and then concentrate on saving the world. That might require that you major in something other than saving the world. Or find a living situation that is close to free so you can pay off the debt quickly. Our lives are long and I think if you make a long-term plan, you can accomplish amazing things.

 

A report I read a year or so ago indicated that the most in-demand professions of the future will be those people who can actually *do* things ... another piece about how Americans have all but lost the ability to be "Renaissance" men and women ...

 

My husband's job went Renaissance LOL. It always was a bit that way in the first place, but when he began consulting, it became much more so. And he's much happier that way. It is more satisfying. I'm not sure people were meant to do one thing for a long time. I've read a number of things that say that part of the reason people are so miserable in our times is that they work a narrow slice of a job instead of getting to see something through from beginning to end. (I think they are wrong about people being more miserable now, but I think the point is still valid because some of the other things people used to be miserable about we've fixed.) (I am leaving out of this discussion whether it is advisable in the long run to take advantage of cheap labour overseas, and ignoring the ethics.)

 

Continuing in a new post...

Edited by Nan in Mass
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When I think even of my own parents' date=' I always have said that my Dad can do anything........................... And that's just the tip of the iceburg! I'm sorry I've gone on so, but LOTS of older people were just "naturally" good at a multitude of things..... And none of these things were at all related to our primary family business, which was a grocery store. A typical husband/wife team today would never dream of attempting even one of the things I've mentioned, much less all of them (and more)![/quote']

 

Other aspects of job satisfaction that I try to keep in mind are:

If you work harder, do you make more money? (salary or hourly?)

If you are better at it, do you make more money?

Does the work require creativity?

Do you get to learn new things?

Does it contain challenges, puzzles, problem solving?

Do you get credit for your input? (other than money, like respect among your coworkers)

Does the work match the person? (makers get to make something, carers get to take care of something, problem-solvers get to solve problems, extrovers get to interact with people, introverts are protected from too much contact with people, people who want to save the world get to save the world, helpers get to help, leaders get to lead, etc.)

 

Your parents arranged their lives so that they had most of those things. Most successful people I know (successful inside themselves, not as in big house, nice car, etc.) fall into two catagories. Some of them are very focused people and they have managed to find a way to devote themselves to that and put all their energy into it. (If you have a child who is extremely gifted, you probably will have to help them find this sort of job.) The others are the ones who have found a way support themselves and their families that doesn't take up so much energy that they can't do other, more personally satisfying jobs. The other jobs might or might not be money-making. The trick seems to be that the main money-making job has to be fairly satisfying or else it drains the person and makes them so miserable that they can't do those other jobs. (Situations like the man who works a repetative factory job so he can work out the plot to his book are rare.) We have decided to try to aim our children towards this last sort of job.

 

As I write this, I am realizing why our homeschool seems so much more complicated than many other people's. I think for my children to be happy, they need to be able to do multiple things. We could leave them to discover and learn the basics of those things themselves, but we know from watching our friends how hard that can be. Take sailing - we have watched friends try to learn to go cruising as adults and many have given up. The skill set is huge and you are likely to have some very off-putting adventures while you are aquiring the experience needed to stay out of danger. So not only am I trying to teach math and foreign languages, I am also trying to teach the basics of anything else my children might conceivably want to do, like camping, boating, art, music, traveling, snow sports, games, woodworking, car repair, and probably lots of other things I can't think of right now. Some of that list can be covered by one thing, like general tool use, or gymnastics, which teaches enough physical coordination that they can then learn other bits more easily. Some of it has overlapping skill sets, like camping and sailing. Some things I have deliberately not taught because I didn't think they would suit our family, like hunting and theatre. It is complicated, though. I guess I can see why I don't feel like we are a very academic family. We are pretty wrapped up in these other sorts of things, and gain great satisfaction from them. Not that we don't watch and rewatch Twelveth Night or think about the myths when we look at the stars or read Science News... just more that we don't care if we misspell twelveth... or something like that, anyway. But I'm getting off track.

 

QUOTE=]So raising up children who can think for themselves, learn for themselves, may not be such a bad thing at all!

 

Nope! I know that I can't offer my children the high level of academics that our local school system offers. I think, though, that the way the world is going, homeschooling can offer them something that the superior academics of school can't. Their ability to learn something outside school will (hopefully) give them a flexibility and ability to keep up with change that will balance the academic disadvantages. Besides, as my husband keeps pointing out, homeschooling never ends. You keep right on homeschooling yourself your whole life. So hopefully, the things mine miss now they can fill in later. Hopefully. This is why I chose TWTM - because it emphasizes skills and groundwork now, so the rest can come later as needed. I just am trying to do skills and groundwork for academics AND skills and groundwork for anything else that I think my children might want to do. I am trying to teach them how to read music and do math and speak French AND how to renew a passport, tie a knot, drill a hole, row a boat, tell a fair weather cloud from a thunderstorm, climb a tree, go off a jump on their snowboard... It is a lot and I tend to get lost in the details. Or forget where I am going. Or wonder if we have the emphasis all wrong. Or wonder if by going after so much we are failing to do anything enough.

 

Then somebody here says to go watch that film something billion (or whatever its name was) and I really go back to worrying...

 

Yikes this is long. Good thing we are on Feb. break.

 

It is snowing. Finally! Yippee!

 

-Nan, who likes her winters to be white

 

PS - This is probably full of typos, but I have to go do something else now so I can't reread it now. Sorry. Hopefully I'll get back later and clean it up some.

Edited by Nan in Mass
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Following along here......my dh talks all the time about the "Renaissance Man (or Woman)", and how he thinks that kind of person nowadays, sadly, is gone. "Where are they?" he asks. He definitely remembers this from his days in college and post grad. I don't know of anyone of my kid's peer group that would even know the definition of the term. Is that scary, or just food for thought?

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Following along here......my dh talks all the time about the "Renaissance Man (or Woman)", and how he thinks that kind of person nowadays, sadly, is gone. "Where are they?" he asks. He definitely remembers this from his days in college and post grad. I don't know of anyone of my kid's peer group that would even know the definition of the term. Is that scary, or just food for thought?

 

I know some (and know of some.) Most are homeschooled. :001_smile:

Edited by angela in ohio
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Following along here......my dh talks all the time about the "Renaissance Man (or Woman)", and how he thinks that kind of person nowadays, sadly, is gone. "Where are they?" he asks. He definitely remembers this from his days in college and post grad. I don't know of anyone of my kid's peer group that would even know the definition of the term. Is that scary, or just food for thought?

 

Actually, I think there may be hope. Magazines like Make and Craft are doing really well because of a new generation of DIYers (Do-It-Yourself-ers). The Urban Homesteaders of today may be a passing fad--but maybe not.

 

Supporting your husband's argument is something I witnessed when helping clean out old materials at the Extension office. A few decades ago, the 4-H food and nutrition project for preteens and teens had a list of requirements that included canning x number of jars of y different fruits and vegetables as well as make z number of jars of jam. Today, many parents don't want their kids touching a stove let alone dealing with canning equipment! The woodworking projects were wonderful--useful cabinets, homemade desks. Today we applaud if a kid makes a birdhouse from a pre-cut kit. So maybe the DIY revolution isn't quite in full swing.

 

Jane

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I worry about the young generation of makers. In the last five years, we've lost all our big fabric stores and Walmart has gotten rid of their fabric department. I am wondering if this is because home ec/shop has been replaced by computer technology in the schools. Or is it a budget problem? Or a priorities problem? It was greatly reduced in my day from what it had been ten years earlier, as we could tell by the leftover unused equipment in all our classrooms. (The same was true of gym - my school had a full set of gymnastics equipment and used to have a gymnastics team when my husband's older brother was there.) My oldest's high school scrapped all the home ec and shop classes the last year he was there. They said they wanted to replace them with fine arts classes. I thought of some of his less intellectual friends, the ones whose popularity partially stemmed from their ability to supply their friends with yummy cookies during the school day, and felt so sad. What kind of message does that send to the children whose fathers are car mechanics and whose mothers stay home? Fortunately, there are a few small quilting stores left, so I still have someplace to buy fabric, but I wonder how many of my children's generation will be able to buy a pattern and follow it to make a halloween costume or put together that swingset that comes in a million pieces. Sigh - so they can fit more of them on the boat from the country where they make them. In my small town, many of the men work multiple jobs and are jacks of all trades, whether or not they have a college education, but my town probably isn't the norm. Maybe if the tv weren't such a neat, clean, space-efficient, low-energy-input-needing device, sewing machines and workshops as entertainment would come back.

-Nan

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I worry about the young generation of makers. In the last five years, we've lost all our big fabric stores and Walmart has gotten rid of their fabric department. I am wondering if this is because home ec/shop has been replaced by computer technology in the schools. Or is it a budget problem? Or a priorities problem? It was greatly reduced in my day from what it had been ten years earlier, as we could tell by the leftover unused equipment in all our classrooms. (The same was true of gym - my school had a full set of gymnastics equipment and used to have a gymnastics team when my husband's older brother was there.) My oldest's high school scrapped all the home ec and shop classes the last year he was there. They said they wanted to replace them with fine arts classes. I thought of some of his less intellectual friends, the ones whose popularity partially stemmed from their ability to supply their friends with yummy cookies during the school day, and felt so sad. What kind of message does that send to the children whose fathers are car mechanics and whose mothers stay home? Fortunately, there are a few small quilting stores left, so I still have someplace to buy fabric, but I wonder how many of my children's generation will be able to buy a pattern and follow it to make a halloween costume or put together that swingset that comes in a million pieces. Sigh - so they can fit more of them on the boat from the country where they make them. In my small town, many of the men work multiple jobs and are jacks of all trades, whether or not they have a college education, but my town probably isn't the norm. Maybe if the tv weren't such a neat, clean, space-efficient, low-energy-input-needing device, sewing machines and workshops as entertainment would come back.

-Nan

 

Yep, I was just thinking about home ec and shop classes, neither of which were offered at the school my kids attended. I took home ec in high school and loved it. I remember lessons we had on budgeting and grocery shopping, etc, and I know those are the kinds of lessons that kids would be well served by in this day and time. I also was thinking yesterday that it wouldn't hurt to allot an hour each day in jr. and sr. high school for listening to the Dave Ramsey radio program. These kids need to hear the painful calls he receives from people suffering with great debt and troubled with how to find their way out. Learning life skills in school is just gone nowadays.

 

Oh, and my dh is very impressed with plumbers, car mechanics, air conditioning repair men, etc. He has always said there is a place for everyone in this world and that is why we all have to learn a different skill. I have spoken to my son about attending vo-tech school years ago, but he would not think of it. His friends would declare that totally "uncool". Where did they get that from???

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Actually, I think there may be hope. Magazines like Make and Craft are doing really well because of a new generation of DIYers (Do-It-Yourself-ers). The Urban Homesteaders of today may be a passing fad--but maybe not.

 

Supporting your husband's argument is something I witnessed when helping clean out old materials at the Extension office. A few decades ago, the 4-H food and nutrition project for preteens and teens had a list of requirements that included canning x number of jars of y different fruits and vegetables as well as make z number of jars of jam. Today, many parents don't want their kids touching a stove let alone dealing with canning equipment! The woodworking projects were wonderful--useful cabinets, homemade desks. Today we applaud if a kid makes a birdhouse from a pre-cut kit. So maybe the DIY revolution isn't quite in full swing.

 

Jane

 

I haven't read any of this thread except for the last few posts. I only clicked on it b/c I saw Jane was responding!

 

I wanted to comment on this point. If something happened to me today, I know my kids could keep our household running. They basically did in part during the last few months of my pregnancy.

 

I took them to them to the dentist a couple of weeks ago and the reaction the kids got when talking to the dentist and the tech was shocking. The fact that my 15 yod was cooking some of the meals and that the 11 and 14 yr olds were vacuuming, mopping, and cleaning bathrooms was unheard of. "Unheard of???" Oh, please! Surely I am not the only one in my generation that had parents that expected them to do chores and help out in the household!

 

I think we have moved beyond even basic homemaking and carpentry skills. I think there is a complete detachment in aiding children mature into independent self-sufficient adults that won't be disposable consumers, restaurant dependent, etc.

 

I think that the Popular Mechanics approach to pre-teen and teenage boys is not only fun, but self-esteem building. There is inherent internal reward in creating. The same goes for sewing, cooking, knitting, etc.....whatever the task. Replacing all of those with video game successes is not the same.

Edited by 8FillTheHeart
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I haven't read any of this thread except for the last few posts. I only clicked on it b/c I saw Jane was responding!

 

 

 

I feel like I walked into a tea party with my best WTM friends! It might improve my mental health to stay away from the General Board and read the K-8 more often.

 

It occurred to me that as we bemoan the loss of certain DIY skills, there are entirely new abilities being displayed by some of our youth. For example, my son reconditioned a five year old computer that a neighbor was tossing for use at the wildlife shelter where we volunteer. He adapted a particular data base for the shelter's needs. I would not have known the words "data base" in high school. Perhaps as some skills are lost, new ones are found?

 

Good to "see" you.

Jane

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I feel like I walked into a tea party with my best WTM friends! It might improve my mental health to stay away from the General Board and read the K-8 more often.

 

It occurred to me that as we bemoan the loss of certain DIY skills, there are entirely new abilities being displayed by some of our youth. For example, my son reconditioned a five year old computer that a neighbor was tossing for use at the wildlife shelter where we volunteer. He adapted a particular data base for the shelter's needs. I would not have known the words "data base" in high school. Perhaps as some skills are lost, new ones are found?

 

Good to "see" you.

Jane

 

You couldn't drag me over to the general board!! ;)

 

I think you have a point, but I see most of our neighborhood kids playing on computers, facebooking, etc. Do those have the same merit? Those are socializing/entertainment venues vs. skill/development ones.

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I'm not sure I agree with you there. We've been deliberately trying to foster the skills associated with computers, not as socializing/entertainment but as skill/development ones. We made it a point this fall, at the beginning of 9th grade, to teach our son to take a photo on his camera and put it into a document, use the features in Word to make an attractive, more easily readable document, efficiently search the net for something, and other lap-top skills. Meanwhile, a friend offered to pay him to build a model for their games. My son used his research skills to find detailed pictures of what he was supposed to build. He took photos of his progress and posted them on the game website (which one of the boys runs so they can all coordinate themselves and make sure they each have the right game pieces and rule books when they meet at the library to play). Other people saw the photos and put in orders for the models. My son is spending all his spare time with an exacto knife and the elmers now, is trying to decide on a name for his new company, and has requested that I get him a notebook in which to keep track of his finances. This is exactly the sort of thing we were hoping would develop when we gave him a laptop. It was a risk, because of course he spends time playing games on it, too. But we also think perhaps now is a better time to figure out how to self-regulate than when he is in college and suddenly has unlimited access. It will be cheaper lesson now. Not that I can't see your point and didn't think long and hard before deciding to go this route...

-Nan

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It was fine, Nan! (Oh, I see now that you already edited it before I managed to get here....)

 

I agree that I feel that a liberal arts education is not a waste, even after reading the article by the adjunct professor who has been writing for years now that young people should not waste their time or money in pursuing a graduate degree in liberal arts, LOL. My older son is a liberal arts guy. How can I make him a math or science guy, when that's just not who he is?

 

And I am willing for him to accrue some debt in getting such an education. I do worry that the amount of debt, even after scholarship offerings, may be so large that it will equal a home mortgage. I hate to see him saddled with that sort of debt straight out of school, and so does my husband. I worry about him not being successful enough after accruing such debt to pay it off quickly, too. Or I worry that he won't be inventive enough to make a new age job for himself that will help him to do this. He does have some processing problems, and I just worry that he won't be quick enough on his feet because of those to find his way, if that makes any sense.... I think that kids who are at the top of the game could do fine with this scenario, but is my son one of those?

 

I worked from the time I was eleven in my family's business. I worked some in college, both for money and for graduate level credit. I worked full time until my older son was about two, then went to part time work. I haven't worked since I moved here (for money, any way, LOL). I absolutely agree that a good, solid education is worth the price, whether it produces work in the field studied, or not. My education was in physical anthropology, which was at the time still a sort of soft-science liberal arts major. I ended up with paralegal certification later on, also, and used both things to work in the business of medical malpractice defense.

 

I only recently read Gatto's history about American education. All the stories he told about kids involved with meaningful work really resonated with me. If I had not worked in so many areas of our business while I grew up, if I had not managed areas of the business, worked in buying for the business, etc., then I would not have been able to work in management as I did from the time I was in college. If I had not had the skills sets I obtained through all those work experiences, I do not think that I would have had the ingenuity to put together my interests with my training and go after a job that incorporated both (and which I loved). I tend to think that the more real life experience our children get under their belts at a young age, the better they will be at problem solving of all types (as my parents' generation and my grandparents', etc.).

 

Because of the way our society is set up at this time, kids really can't begin to experiment with real life sorts of work and consequences unless we perhaps have a working farm or family business where they can work (at least informally), or if we try to set up lots of experiences to build real life skills such as you are doing with sailing, camping, etc. I think we really have to work hard to find these sorts of experiences and sample them often enough for it to be meaningful for them. This is perhaps even more difficult with my older son, because if he isn't immersed in something for a long time and/or isn't involved in something for about six months, he tends to lose a lot of his memory of it. And depending on where we Americans live, how much money we might have to participate in such things, and a host of other factors, there is a varying degree to which different people may be able to engage in this sort of (what I consider to be essential) sort of education.

 

I'm not sure what is going on with so many kids today who experience things like auditory and sensory processing problems (and other related neurological problems) - that is, I'm not sure what can be causing what I see as a vast increase in these conditions (not just better diagnosis). I'm wondering how we can go forward into the future and best serve all our kids (and grand-kids) so that they will be ready and able to move (hopefully) seamlessly from college careers into work careers. I don't care about high power, high paying jobs any more, either, as I thought I did when I was younger. I do just want my children to be in fulfilling work that they love. How to best do that without drowning themselves in debt becomes the question.

 

I have thoughts swirling 'round of things Gatto said about how intelligent most individuals were in colonial America, despite intensive formal education, as one instance; about how multi-functional, multi-faceted most adults I knew growing up were vs. most adults I know today; about articles recently written on when/how the tuition bubble for American colleges might burst; about all the free open courseware now being thrown up online by major U.S. universities. I sort of feel as if our children's learning abilities, as a whole, are in a state of change at this time in our history. Likewise, I feel as if our cultural learning opportunities for young people, our secondary education system, and our jobs system are all in a major state of change from what I experienced in growing up. How do we Americans best seek to engage our children now and into the future generations so that they become thinkers and doers, rather than allowing life to passively wash over them? or worse, being swept away in the currents of life, perhaps to drown?

 

You do give me some hope that we can create a sort of global workplace that will enable new and previously unthought of types of job opportunities for the future. That's very interesting and I'll have to think much more about that! I've already been giving some thought to ways that my son might put his interests to work to earn a living in a way that will also help him be happy and fulfilled. I'm sure once he goes to college and I am apprised of new work ongoing in his areas of interest that more ideas will be forthcoming. I'm just a little apprehensive about it all right now, LOL.

 

So, I remain hopeful that we are raising a batch of nouvo-Renaissance children who will forge a brave new world of work, learning, and happiness as they become adults. I hope that in future we, as a country, can develop ways to better challege these children as they grow up and help prepare them for adulthood. And hopefully, someday in the not-too-distant-future, I will have time to finally write some - and perhaps even eventually somehow make enough money to rehab the family farm into a brave new world of sustainable agriculture - never stop learning, eh?

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I really think that a lot of what I would term a new Renaissance movement can be seen in today's move by many farmers to foster sustainable agriculture, organic farming practices, the slow food movement and other ways in which people are moving toward a healthier and more natural lifestyle, closer to and more in tune with the land. I don't mean the pop-culture "green" movement. I mean real people farming in the way farming was done in another era, before addition of chemicals and ever more chemicals changed everything. Many folks seem to be rediscovering what my grandparents' generation took for granted.

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Life is moving quickly here and school is finally back in it's groove. There is little time for anything other than a quick read. Please know that right now, you all have my gratitude for keeping this conversation going. Regena and Nan, you are awesome. Jane, I'm so glad you dropped by along with 8Fillstheheart.

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"I do just want my children to be in fulfilling work that they love. How to best do that without drowning themselves in debt becomes the question. " - I do, too. Mine seem to have found their own way around the debt question, at least the older two have, and around the question of having at least time to do alternate work that they love and a job they won't mind. That is the plan, anyway. I worry about their friends. I worry about the whole "failure to launch" part. Ours aren't quite launched yet. It looks like they will, but many a slip and all that. I think failure to launch is a major problem today. I wonder about all the allergies. My area happens to be a fairly good one for raising handy children, but I worry about hitting the right balance between academic skills and life skills, the right balance between experience with technology and protection from its temptations, the right balance between sheltering and innoculation, and, of course, sustainability and environmental damage and world peace (while we are at it - sigh). You write and work on sustainability, and I'll paint (if I can figure out how to) and work on world peace, and we can meet for tea when we are old and go back over what we managed to do right, deal? Only it all seems to be so individualized, I'm not sure it will be helpful to anyone, even our children. I've worried myself grey and bald over my older two. I suspect I will worry myself sick over the younger one, too. I think my different middle one might have managed to figure out something to do for himself? Sometimes they find their own solutions. Not that I know if it will really work yet.

 

What was it that Gatto said about past intelligence? Can you expand on that a bit?

 

-Nan

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"I think we have moved beyond even basic homemaking and carpentry skills. I think there is a complete detachment in aiding children mature into independent self-sufficient adults that won't be disposable consumers, restaurant dependent, etc.

 

I think that the Popular Mechanics approach to pre-teen and teenage boys is not only fun, but self-esteem building. There is inherent internal reward in creating. The same goes for sewing, cooking, knitting, etc.....whatever the task. Replacing all of those with video game successes is not the same."

 

So true! (And as perhaps yet another aside, LOL: I read an article a year or so ago about how the army is starting to add in scents and other sorts of triggers to their computer training simulators because they were finding that just the computer games alone weren't doing the trick. Lots of different environmental factors could throw off a person once they were in the real life environment.)

 

Thanks again, Lisa, for starting us down a rabbit trail that has me feeling like I'm back on the WTM boards of about five years ago..... ah, the nostalgia.....

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I don't know how to do multiple quotes, but I want to throw out something that I've been thinking about, with regards to the satisfaction of working with one's hands (DIY, urban homesteading, etc.), and the value of a broad liberal education. I am in Jane's camp about education for education's sake. But I also recognize that an increasing number of young people are without basic skills, and, I would argue, are deeply dissatisfied because of it. (There is a great scene in Sara Stein's book about this, Noah's Children: Restoring the Ecology of Childhood.)

 

The one line that I remember from the book The Hurried Child is the young boy who was brilliant at mathematics saying that he longed to do something practical, like build a porch or paint a house (I think I have that right). He was brilliant but not satisfied. I think we need practical skills, not just for the sake of being able to function in the world, but because it is deeply, deeply satisfying to make things with our hands. And I would argue that having these skills opens us to the possibility of being able to delight in "purely" academic pursuits.

 

(Tomorrow I am buying coffee for a math professor in exchange for 20 minutes of his time, so he can explain some concepts to me from NEM. I can get the answers, but don't think mathematically, and so cannot talk through the problem. I don't have the vocabulary. He sees math as a game, a puzzle. I see math *problems*! This man delights in math as an abstract thing, but also builds bicycles. Does this make sense?)

 

An excellent article about this, that I read again and again is this one, "The Case for Working With Your Hands":

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html

 

In our world where jobs and lives are increasingly disconnected (digitally) from the "real" world, I think this is important.

 

Somewhat related: I remember bemoaning to my mother once about the fact that we weren't taught the names of trees when I was in school, and I was upset about it. She knew the names of everything! She gasped and said, "I didn't learn that in school! When I was a girl, everyone just knew things like that about our world!" Our world, plants, our food, the things that are basic to our existence, are oddly disconnected from us. Or we from them. (Have you seen the blog by the woman, a teacher in public school, who is eating the cafeteria food every day for a year, documenting what is served. Disgusting! All wrapped in plastic!)

 

I guess what I am thinking is that academic excellence is meaningless (to me) if it occurs in a vacuum. I want the whole package for my children. This is what, I think, others are getting at when they say they want their children to be happy. For me, happiness is not a vague thing, but as attainable as academic excellence, through the teaching of basic skills that connect us with our food, our homes, our community. For me, happiness is about the kind of competence and confidence that allows us to deeply engage and delight in our community. It's about making dinner and sweeping floors and listening to Alan Rickman reading The Return of the Native while doing the chores and loving it all.

 

And I am so grateful for you, for this community of women, and this place where I can think out loud about what is meaningful. Thank you, Lisa, for asking these questions.

Edited by Nicole M
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How about you come paint landscapes on my farm, LOL? It will be pretty then, if I have my way about it.

 

Gatto talked at length about the complexity of the syntax - and not just that - but also the complexity of the actual content of works by contemporary writers of that time period. He mentioned all the pamphlets, for instance, that went round to the masses, created by the likes of Paine and Franklin, the Adams family, Washington, etc. Political works were read by, analyzed by, and understood well by the common man of the time, despite his "lack" of formal education.

 

Writers like James Fennimore Cooper and others who wrote virtual tombs were well read. He details just how little "formal" education children had at the time and expounds on how very learned the populace was, despite this fact. And he goes on to give many other instances of the level of intellect up through the early 1900's vs. now.

 

He would actually be a great speaker for "unschooling" - but he's not advocating for an anything goes, directionless sort of life which I see a lot of unschoolers around me falling into. He advocates for directed, real world learning. Meaningful learning. Apprenticeships of various sorts from about middle school age up, for instance (which SWB advocates for, too). He's speaking at an unschooler's convention not too far from me pretty soon, as a matter of fact. Too bad I don't have the time to go hear him.

 

I think his arguments make a lot of sense. Our brains are amazing things. Working through real problems and solving those, or learning from real mistakes that have real consequences, has got to be the most powerful sort of way for our brains to learn and develop. As evidenced by the army's findings not too long ago that computer simulated training was lacking without adding in environmental prompts such as scents, fog, cold, damp, etc., we don't even always appreciate how very many variables are involved in our learning processes. We don't fully understand how the brain works, so we can't really know how various types of stimuli affect our ability to learn - and learn well - AND retain - AND extrapolate - and APPLY knowledge!

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You make me glad I live where I do. Here, even our failured-to-launch young people do things. They go fishing on hot days (and get badly sunburned and get in trouble with the harbour master or game warden and leave their parents wondering about the number of life jackets). They persuade the library to buy shelves worth of games manuals (for an astronomical price). They go swimming in the reservoir (and get in trouble with the police). They go sleep in the woods (and wind up fighting off coyotes or getting Lymes). They build plywood jumps on the ice and take their dirtbikes over it (until somebody breaks their wrist or falls through the ice). They find old canoes and patch them up (and get spooked by beavers who look like alligators in the dusk and leave their fathers wondering what happened to that expensive can of epoxy). They spend hours playing musical instruments (and having the neighbors complain about the noise). They take their cars apart (and put them back together again wrong). They fix old lawn tractors (and cause traffic jams driving them down the street). They make jewelry and bags and sell them to the tourists. They redo their parents' basements (with mixed results, sometimes not finishing). They transfer all of their parent's old records to their ipods and then spend hours exploring the internet to find more new music to listen to (and bog down the family computer so much that it gridlocks). They make movies of themselves having huge battles with pipe insulators and spend hours editing them (baffling the police and once again gridlocking the family computer). They go to Europe (and sprain their ankle racing an elevator down a dark stairwell and wind up in the emergency room). They spend hours painting little models (very expensive little models). They cook feasts for themselves (leaving their parents wondering what happened to all those steaks that were in the freezer and where that big pot went). They fall off second story roofs and wreck numerous cars and... and I can kind of see why some parents discourage their children from doing things. And all these doings still don't solve the problem of failure to launch, job satisfaction, acting responsibly, aquiring good study skills, figuring out what they want to be when they grow up, etc.

-Nan

Edited by Nan in Mass
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That sounds perfect (landscapes).

 

How good is Gatto's research, I wonder? My impression (unfounded) of that time was lots of uneducated people with a few self-educated ones and even fewer tutor or school educated ones amongst them. Are we hearing only about the educated ones? Are the ratios the same now-a-days? What happens if you include all the indentured servants and Native Americans (not that I consider them uneducated - just with a different sort of education, a problem many of our immigrants have now-a-days) and the slaves (same story)? I wonder how much our ability to see each other and know about each other, and our attempts at educating everyone, changes our perception of how many of us are educated? Or maybe it is a stupid question?

 

That is fascinating about the army's findings.

-Nan

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The argument for a Renaissance education in all things (from books to hands on) plays well for me!

 

Even if little niece-let discards Aunt Jane's work, I achieved great personal satisfaction with the project.

 

For someone who sees the world through dollars and cents alone, my project was a waste of time.

 

I think that argument is starting to play well for me, too. All these years of reading here, and I have been concentrating on how to learn/teach academic skills, which has been GREAT and continues to be so. Yet, the other life skills are creeping into my brain lately, as my kids get older and I start thinking about life skills they will need in just a few short years. So, I incorporate as I think of them and can fit them into our life. Or change things around to *make* them fit into our life.

 

I totally get the project idea. All these different little things I've been doing lately - drawing geometric shapes, creating designs, saving up my bit of spending money so I can buy cotton yarn that I think is so pretty and then making up hats (going on my 4th now!) by crocheting....with no one in particular to give them to, yet. Marking up my WEM book so I can get the big idea. And currently marking up a drawing book so I can get the big idea there and then start putting drawing skills into our regular schedule - not so my kids can become great artists, but to give them another skill dimension through which to see. It's all so fun and satisfying; yet it's still a little unsettling for me, as I've been so used to working hard to survive and provide stability since high school.

 

I'm 42 and after a few years trying to achieve the status quo I realized (with great anguish) that I still want the same things out of life I did when I was 17. Things I gave up because they weren't "normal" and no one ever told me I could achieve them. No one ever told me to go after what would make me happy and carve out a lifestyle from it. It was always "How are you going to pay your bills, your mortgage?" Maybe I don't want a mortgage. Maybe the sense of wanderlust that still burns in me doesn't want to be tied down to a physical location. (sorry..my own rabbit hole here). My dh has some of the same spirit of regret.

 

If you EVER get on the road, I want to hear all about it!!!! I still let my mind wander down the RV avenue regularly. I traveled a lot in my 20s and really, really miss it.

 

Other aspects of job satisfaction that I try to keep in mind are:

If you work harder, do you make more money? (salary or hourly?)

If you are better at it, do you make more money?

Does the work require creativity?

Do you get to learn new things?

Does it contain challenges, puzzles, problem solving?

Do you get credit for your input? (other than money, like respect among your coworkers)

Does the work match the person? (makers get to make something, carers get to take care of something, problem-solvers get to solve problems, extrovers get to interact with people, introverts are protected from too much contact with people, people who want to save the world get to save the world, helpers get to help, leaders get to lead, etc.)

 

How did you think these questions up? No one ever asked me these things when I was in high school. And after high school, before I got involved in a world missions organization, my mentality was "get any old job I could, and save up money." And even after my time in missions, when I got married and had to look for paid work, it was the same mentality - "get what you can with what you can *do* - nothing about what I liked."

 

I worry about the young generation of makers. In the last five years, we've lost all our big fabric stores and Walmart has gotten rid of their fabric department.

 

Fortunately, there are a few small quilting stores left, so I still have someplace to buy fabric, but I wonder how many of my children's generation will be able to buy a pattern and follow it to make a halloween costume

 

Big fabric stores are gone?? Wow. I knew that some of our WM were getting rid of the fabric dept., although I was in one recently that was still going, and heard someone say that many people complained and so the store manager there agreed to keep it for another year. Come to think of it, one branch of our big fabric store may have closed down here!

 

You are pricking my conscience, Nan. I haven't gone very far in teaching my kids some of these practical things. I need to shift my balance a little. At least they see how *I* go about these things. They hear me talk about how to make things for Christmas and birthday gifts instead of just earning money and then running to the store for a gift. My daughter watched me find a huge purple cotton sheet at the thrift store yesterday, and heard me say, "Oh, this will make a great piece of fabric for a skirt or dress for you!"

 

She also saw me find a 1970s How to Weave book at another thrift store last week, and got excited as she looked through it. It was more than just a book of projects - it told the history of weaving, and different types of weaving, and frugal ways to weave and the practicalities of weaving. So I bought it. I have all these great books and supplies for practical skills - just need to somehow make more room for doing them.

 

I took them to them to the dentist a couple of weeks ago and the reaction the kids got when talking to the dentist and the tech was shocking. The fact that my 15 yod was cooking some of the meals and that the 11 and 14 yr olds were vacuuming, mopping, and cleaning bathrooms was unheard of. "Unheard of???" Oh, please! Surely I am not the only one in my generation that had parents that expected them to do chores and help out in the household!

 

No, you're not. I think I'm a year or two younger than you, and my mother certainly had us doing chores - she was a single Mom raising 5 kids - we had to, to survive. She even lamented once that she didn't teach me as many sewing skills as she wanted to, but I told her that she at least got me started. But it is weird when I encounter that reaction - "Your kids help you with kitchen cleanup/vacuuming/laundry/etc.??" "Uh, yes, I sure can't do it all and I certainly can't afford to hire help and I'm not a machine who can do domestic work day and night without end!"

 

that has me feeling like I'm back on the WTM boards of about five years ago..... ah, the nostalgia.....

 

:iagree: I enjoyed those discussions (though I mostly lurked then) and this one is totally refreshing.

 

Our brains are amazing things...we don't even always appreciate how very many variables are involved in our learning processes. We don't fully understand how the brain works, so we can't really know how various types of stimuli affect our ability to learn - and learn well - AND retain - AND extrapolate - and APPLY knowledge!

 

I'm reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain right now and this reminds me of what I'm reading. I want to incorporate drawing skills more regularly into our week, maybe even up on par with grammar and math. If I can. We'll see.:D

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No, we're on the same page. I'm juxtaposing kids I know here who play games all day (and think they therefore would be great soldiers - just because they're good at WOW or some other game), with the real world sort of learning that even the army has realized it needs. I wish I could remember the name of that science magazine where I read about all that. It's the one that always details the newest, cutting edge technology, etc. Omni? Maybe. It's been a while....

 

I agree that computer skills - meaningful skills - are absolutely necessary. Learning how to program; learning how to do spread sheets, accounting work, word processing work, presentation programs - all those are meaningful and important.

 

But the kids whose parents go on for *years* about how well coordinated their children will be, what fine motor skills they'll have, etc. from playing games all day are, I'm afraid, just deluding themselves.

 

Don't get me wrong. My older son got a laptop last summer for his birthday. I got a laptop for Christmas so I can work more away from home. My younger son is on ALL of them WAY more than we want, LOL! And my husband loves playing games with them (even though they all tell me he's awful) at the local LAN place so much that he looks for excuses to take them there (twice this past weekend - TWICE!)

 

I'm looking into my younger son taking programming classes at our local library next school year. So I absolutely think that learning to do work with computers is important!

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Yes, plants! My parents walk through the woods and name every plant and tell stories about its usage and things others have told them about it, etc. I don't know a fraction of what they have told me and yet once when I walked through the woods with some kids and tried to just make conversation, the mothers were all freaking out that I knew what the plants were, LOL!

 

I think you've struck on something that I was trying to express. It's one thing to know a piece of knowledge in one's head, but I think that different sorts of neurons are firing when one links doing something meaningful with the knowing. And somehow, I think that perhaps in a time gone by, part of what helped our forefathers be so seemingly intelligent without a ton of formal education was the fact that learning was more normally always linked to doing. They weren't just talking heads. They weren't just learning in a vacuum.... Thank you.

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