The breadth vs. depth question

[Nan in Mass]

Art history???? Are they insane???? Only very special people can manage that course. Yikes! That is a nightmare of a survey course. At least, if you take world history, you are likely to have heard a fair proportion of it in the course of your education. Art history has the potential to be truly impossible. Are there options other than the survey course? What is worse than discussing literature? Discussing art!

 

Sheepishly editing to say that I suddenly remembered that my mathematitian brother-in-law is good at art history and likes it. Hmmm... Sorry... It just happens to be one of those subjects that I don't get. Or do I mean art appreciation? I will now humbly be quiet.

Edited July 17, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[Nan in Mass]

We had a special English class for engineers. Although we read some classics and wrote some poetry, the class doubled as a technical writing class and a class in ethics and utopias. It was definately "different" in its expectations from the regular English classes.

[prairiegirl]

THank you all for the definition of a cloud child. Due to Jackie's explanation and ElegantLion's lyrics, I do believe I have a cloud child! :D And no, you do not want to pin them down because then they wouldn't be a cloud anymore. Even though my cloud child is exhausting at times and a puzzle to teach, I could not imagine her any other way.

 

Also, thank you for making me feel less of a geek than I do irl. ;)

[AuntPol]

Art history???? Are they insane???? Only very special people can manage that course. Yikes! That is a nightmare of a survey course. At least, if you take world history, you are likely to have heard a fair proportion of it in the course of your education. Art history has the potential to be truly impossible. Are there options other than the survey course? What is worse than discussing literature? Discussing art!

 

Sheepishly editing to say that I suddenly remembered that my mathematitian brother-in-law is good at art history and likes it. Hmmm... Sorry... It just happens to be one of those subjects that I don't get. Or do I mean art appreciation? I will now humbly be quiet.

 

:iagree:

 

I swear everything from ancient Egyptian art to modern art was labeled "stylized" (sp??) by my Art History Profressor. It was hands down the hardest class I ever took.

[Capt_Uhura]

You know, I think I am sounding much more confident in this thread than I really am. I lie awake many, many nights agonizing over whether I am giving my youngest enough material to be creative with. Should he belong to the local robotics club? the chess club? spend more time learning electronic? more time reading Science News? more time building something cool? Or whether I am giving him enough time to work on his own projects. Or whether I am working enough on skills so that he will be able to manage engineering school (if he wants to). Or whether he will do enough projects and be interesting enough to get into an interesting engineering school (we aren't planning on AP physics, AP math, or AP chem and he doesn't belong to the robotics club and he isn't building his own fully functioning Mars rover or inventing a better mouse). Or whether we are giving him the skills he needs to get good grades in CC chem, calc, and physics? Many of those are mutually exclusive items. Arg.

-Nan

 

:grouphug: I lay awake worrying about the exact same things. I'm currently stressing over fielding a FLL team to give him that exposure. But I also have a history buff so I worry about not doing enough structured history, laying that foundation so that he'll be able to make the connections.

 

I think I'm instituting a 1-2hr block of time for projects. But we often spend that time out hiking and doing nature studies. How can you do it all?

 

Capt_Uhura

[Capt_Uhura]

 

Our state university requires math and science majors to take something like 3 English courses, 3 Humanities (History/Lit/Philosophy), and 4 Social Science. Humanities types only need 2 math and 2 science courses, and they have a selection of special lower-level "non-majors" courses to choose from, because of course you can't expect a history major to take General Chemistry. :rolleyes: Yet they do expect Math/Science/Engineering majors to take the same English/Lit/Phil/SocSci courses as everyone else — and write the same papers, do the same literary analysis, etc. For me, that's the biggest thing that holds me back from letting DS just really fly with his science interests — worrying that he won't be able to write a literary analysis paper, or a persuasive argument for a philosophy class, etc.

 

Jackie

 

 

Really? I went to a state school and earned a BS in Science and I didn't take all of those humanities courses. I wonder if that is state or school specific or has it changed that much? HHmm OK, I must find my college transcripts.

[Guest]

:grouphug: I lay awake worrying about the exact same things. I'm currently stressing over fielding a FLL team to give him that exposure. But I also have a history buff so I worry about not doing enough structured history, laying that foundation so that he'll be able to make the connections.

 

I think I'm instituting a 1-2hr block of time for projects. But we often spend that time out hiking and doing nature studies. How can you do it all?

 

Capt_Uhura

 

Foundations come in many forms. And I think it's important, although it can be at first thought discouraging, to keep this in mind: kids don't necessarily remember all that lovely foundation stuff. OhElizabeth recently told me all her daughter remembers from her latest round of ancient history is Hatshepsut (being a most welcome female in an otherwise male-dominated survey) -- and I think there was something about the use of oil (I forget). JennW has a similar story about her son wanting to learn about a famous Japanese artist and print-maker, doing an extended study of this, and not remembering a few years later. I have LOTS of stories of this happening with my daughter (although not with things of her own choosing).

 

So perhaps a program that works for the ages of kids we're generally writing and talking about is one that interests your child, furthers and enriches your ongoing discussions of the world, and leads you on to new ideas. If you have a history buff, that child is going to be always reading, always looking at different aspects of history or people or events, watching DVDs, and engaging his imagination actively with the material. It's all going to build on itself one way or another.

 

Gee, it is so easy to hand out advice to relax and enjoy the ride when it comes to other people. Why oh why oh why can't I do this with myself? I can SEE how basically simple the process is when I'm referring to my own child, but not when I'm considering her, if that makes sense.

 

Someone hit me over the head.

[Guest]

Some of you with middle-school aged children might be interested in a spin-off from this thread now going on the high school board.

[Corraleno]

Really? I went to a state school and earned a BS in Science and I didn't take all of those humanities courses. I wonder if that is state or school specific or has it changed that much? HHmm OK, I must find my college transcripts.

The courses I listed are the core requirements at the major state university here; requirements at the other state universities are somewhat lower (although still very humanities-heavy). I went to a small private LAC, and our only core requirements were to choose 2 out of 4 interdisciplinary "Modes of Learning" courses in your freshman year, and 2 out of 4 interdisciplinary Colloquia in your sophomore year. Statistics was required for all social science majors, but otherwise that was it (no math or science courses required at all).

 

Jackie

[OrganicAnn]

A book that makes the case for depth - "A Disciplined Mind" by Howard Gardner.

 

It is more focused on older kids and less on elementary age kids.

[Corraleno]

OhElizabeth recently told me all her daughter remembers from her latest round of ancient history is Hatshepsut (being a most welcome female in an otherwise male-dominated survey) -- and I think there was something about the use of oil (I forget).

That was me. :D The only two things DD7 remembers from our Egypt study were (1) Hatshepsut, and (2) when a baby had a cold, the cure was for the nursing mother to eat mice. Oh, actually there was one more thing: one of the spells in the Book of the Dead was supposedly to prevent evil spirits from making you stand on your head and eat poop. For some reason both kids remember that really really well. :lol:

 

Jackie

[Guest]

I've been wondering: is there any sort of pattern to what things your kids remember vs. what they forget?

 

I'm thinking about my own childhood, how little I remember of what actually took place in school. Even when I went through a Landmark Childhood of Famous Americans phase I retained little to nothing. I remember exactly one thing from history in elementary school: a drawing of a woman of Dutch ancestry teaching her daughter by telling stories from the picture tiles they had surrounding their fireplace.

 

I remember more about reading, most specifically my long-lasting guilt produced by a Catholic reader story in which a child was gently reprimanded for not wanting to give her favorite picture books away to a charity sale. The girl in the story gave in; I knew I would have refused and that I was a really, really bad and selfish child.

 

Other than that, it's non-curricular things I remember almost exclusively.

 

My daughter remembers:

--everything she has chosen and been invested in

--everything she's ever encountered that was set to music

--every book we read for sheet pleasure when she was little, without any other purpose or expected outcome

--every single detail of every day she spent in summer science camps over the years

--certain things I "made" her do that she really hated

 

Anybody else have stories that might shed light on this issue?

[Nan in Mass]

Doing it all:

 

You can't. I don't think. At least, not all in one year. You can do some things one year and some things the next. I decide what we are definately (it never works out but it is a plan) going to do this year and I decide which years we are going to do the things that I don't think will fit. If I have several books or approaches I want for a subject, I decide what order to read them in and say we will start with one. I tell myself that when that one is done, we will do the next one, and I let myself be fooled into thinking we'll finish the first one, oh, say, by Thanksgiving, and the next around Easter, and they will all fit in. I know perfectly well it has never worked that way, but it is comforting at the time and keeps me from doing the first little bit of three things really well and never getting to the bulk of it. And actually, it works out well because sometimes (often?) it turns out that my first approach doesn't work, and then I have another all lined up. Or it turns out that we use a bit of one and a bit of another. Or something. I often say, "We'll do this this year and that the next." Or I say (and this one has been the most successful) "We'll concentrate on this this year and that the next." So Capt, you could concentrate on one thing one year and another thing the next.

 

Remembering:

 

Remembering, like output, is something that I have almost entirely given up on. (Well, I do insist on a decent amount of output for high school.) I have settled for multiple passes in the hopes that something will stick, and teaching them to memorize for a course so they will survive college. I need a frustrated font for the next bit, something that implies grinding teeth: I cannot figure out how to make them remember anything unless they are currently reviewing flashcards for it. There is a limit to how much flashcard review it is practical to do. We have all been so much happier since I adopted this approach. They do flashcards, but I don't expect them to remember them. I don't tell them that, of course. I am a seive myself, so it all feels very hopeless to me. The flashcards are mostly for foreign languages and a little for science.

 

History:

 

I no longer worry about history at all. I can't discuss it with the children because I am clueless and uninterested. Mine read Kingfisher (outlining occasionally totally on their own), the Cartoon history books several times, TWTM grammar and logic stage lists (one thing for each time period on the list - I can't recommend the logic stage list highly enough but mine read it in high school during the summer we travel round the country in an rv instead of sailing), and in high school, along with their great books, Spielvogel (the grownup, western civ version of Kingfisher - heavily illustrated). For US history, they read the cartoon history several times (various years) and A People's History of the US in high school. Just read and read. And in high school write a few reports. They get lots of primary sources via our family's music and their great books. People tell them things when they are out and about in the world. They've been to various museums and I make them read the plaques. It is amazing what they know, but I don't see any of it. It is all hidden, probably completely non-chronologically organized, within the cloud. I was worried about it for years but didn't do anything because I don't like history and I had my hands full just trying to teach writing and math. Now that I have grownup children, I can see that I needn't have worried, that they know lots, certainly more than anyone else in their large non-history-oriented extended family. We do this with natural history, too.

 

It never occurred to me to try to find a pattern to what they remember. I did it the other way around and tried various methods of memorization to see if anything stuck. They are too musical to tolerate facts set to music, so that is out. Besides, all we ever remember is the tune, when we memorize that way. They don't have enough visual memory for graphic organizers to work (despite being fairly visually oriented). I wish, wish, wish I had worked on building visual memory, a bit every single day for years. It is my very biggest homeschooling regret. I wish we had worked on dictation consistantly as a way to build aural memory (did I get the word right?) as well. It took forever and I didn't understand its purpose, so we abandonned it. I didn't realize I needed to back and just do what we could in a reasonable amount of time, even though it didn't match the amount of material suggested in TWTM. I think they were trying with the new edition to be better at explaining what to do with children who aren't good at something. We settled on flashcards, because we need to do things in no specific order (because we memorize the order not the material) and we to get anything into our brains, we need to do a horrible session first and then review at 10 minute intervals throughout first day, hourly intervals the next day, a few time the next day, twice a day for the rest of the week, once a day for a month, and then we might be able to look at it once a week to keep it. There is an awsome book that explains various strategies for getting things into your memory in the first place so you can review them. It works really well for me. Unfortunately, I didn't discover it until my older one was in college and I haven't been able to persuade the younger one to use it yet (still trying) because he is working on trying to build his visual memory (so he can memorize those strategy game rulebooks) and refuses to listen. I will find the title if you would like it. It is summer and I put away everything but our summer work.

 

Anyway, just reading lots for history seems to have worked fine. People rave at me over my children's history knowledge. Makes me wish I had put the time into doing science that way instead and done something even less effective for history. And here I thought we were failing at history. LOL grrrr.

 

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I thought that was sort of the definition of a BS as apposed to a BA - not as educated in literature and history and things like that?

[Nan in Mass]

While we are discussing books, I would like to recommend one. The title is something like The Homeschooler's Guide to Transcripts and Portfolios. It is recommended in TWTM. I got it when my older one began high school and I wish I had found it earlier. It has methods for documenting and for organizing and for planning a non-traditional education, and suggestions for how to show colleges that your child has actually been prepared despite not having a conventional transcript and that your child is able to college-level academics. We did enough traditional-looking academics (mine had at least read a spine, even if we worked off it differently) that I was able to translate what we did into a traditional transcript, but if you don't, you will need to do something like what is described in this book when it comes time to apply to colleges, and it will be much easier if you have read the book beforehand and taken into account its advice all the way along.

 

Maybe I should write that cloud child book, hunh? I've practically written a book in this thread, it seems like.

 

-Nan

[elegantlion]

My son doesn't know it, but he owes you all a thank you note. :grouphug: We're pushing the start date of school back for several reasons. Originally we'd planned to start August 2nd, now I'm not sure when we'll start. This will give me time to digest the wonderful information in this thread. I was starting to feel that middle school panic...the how will we get it all in?! mania... and now I feel more much calm and confident as we approach the new school year. I foresee a different type of year than I had originally planned, and that is good. Thank you all.

[Capt_Uhura]

Hmm... As I was reading your post, I kept thinking, "Well, we just didn't do that part of TWTM." I have always wondered if my copy of TWTM was different than other people LOL. My family inevitably customizes anything we get near. One of the things I have always appreciated about TWTM is that it is full of little asides telling you how to alter things or not to do this if it doesn't work for you. I look at it as a framework that explains how to teach anything you want.

 

At one point, SWB said that she included directions for taking many subjects all the way to a high level, but she never meant everyone to get to a high level in everything. I took that as permission not to do rhetoric GRIN. My only regret is that when a skill was easy so we didn't work on it, I did

 

I agree with you that many people seem to miss those bits and turn what is supposed to be a set of guidelines for an exploratory, interesting, passion-accommodating, as little slogging as possible sort of education into a school-at-home nightmare. If I were SWB and JW, I would be tearing my hair out. :lol:

 

-Nan

 

I recall a thread about how someone's community of HSers thought WTM/classical education was restrictive, regimented and oppressive etc. When I first read WTM2009, I recall just being overwhelmed. How could I possibly get it all done??? THen I read some more and listened to her MP3s, and I began to see how flexible it is. I think we tend to read WTM as the road map. I think it is as Nan said, here's how you'd take each of these to it's fullest not realizing we're not meant to take it ALL to it's fullest, but take those parts that we feel are important or our kids find important. I was shocked, as well as was AuntPol, that SWB said you should drop topics in high school such as history, math, grammar so that DC can have plenty of time to pursue her passions.

 

I can see following WTM but having a science-centered road-map, doing more of the writing etc in science, and looking at history through a science-lens.

 

ok....must. get. back. to. planning.......

 

Capt_Uhura

[Corraleno]

I've been wondering: is there any sort of pattern to what things your kids remember vs. what they forget?

Well, the pattern with DS is pretty clear: Things that he's inherently interested in AND he sees or does, he remembers forever in great detail. He can recall incredibly minute details from science documentaries he watched 5 years ago, or experiments/observations he made himself. At the other end of the spectrum, if it's something he's not interested in, and I make him read about it, he retains nothing. Sometimes he'll even swear he never read the book or that we never even covered that topic; it's like academic amnesia.

 

So now I'm trying to re-plan a lot of our history & science around documentaries, projects, labs, fieldtrips, etc., and to focus on the topics he's interested in when he's interested (instead of when I scheduled it). I've already started lining up math resources that are more visual and hands-on, with the plan of integrating algebra & geometry so he has at least some hands-on component to math every week.

 

The funny thing is that when I tried to think back to what *I* remember from elementary school, the only things I remember are a few hands-on projects! Even though I'm almost an extreme verbal/sequential type learner and was a voracious reader, the things I remember are: a project on deep-sea creatures I did in 5th grade, a report & map on Finland in 6th, a student newspaper I worked on in 3rd grade, and a report on a "hero of the Revolution" I did in 4th (which I primarily remember because the teacher thought the person I chose — a teenage girl — was not very heroic, LOL). So, I'm thinking that if even someone like me mostly just remembers projects I did on things that interested me, then of course it makes sense that my dyslexic/VSL son would remember things better that way!

 

Jackie

[Corraleno]

My son doesn't know it, but he owes you all a thank you note. :grouphug: .... I foresee a different type of year than I had originally planned, and that is good. Thank you all.

What she said!

 

Jackie

[swimmermom3]

Foundations come in many forms. And I think it's important, although it can be at first thought discouraging, to keep this in mind: kids don't necessarily remember all that lovely foundation stuff. OhElizabeth recently told me all her daughter remembers from her latest round of ancient history is Hatshepsut (being a most welcome female in an otherwise male-dominated survey) -- and I think there was something about the use of oil (I forget). JennW has a similar story about her son wanting to learn about a famous Japanese artist and print-maker, doing an extended study of this, and not remembering a few years later. I have LOTS of stories of this happening with my daughter (although not with things of her own choosing).

 

So perhaps a program that works for the ages of kids we're generally writing and talking about is one that interests your child, furthers and enriches your ongoing discussions of the world, and leads you on to new ideas. If you have a history buff, that child is going to be always reading, always looking at different aspects of history or people or events, watching DVDs, and engaging his imagination actively with the material. It's all going to build on itself one way or another.

 

Gee, it is so easy to hand out advice to relax and enjoy the ride when it comes to other people. Why oh why oh why can't I do this with myself? I can SEE how basically simple the process is when I'm referring to my own child, but not when I'm considering her, if that makes sense.

 

Someone hit me over the head.

 

The first part of your post would be a strong reason why we should be placing more emphasis on skills rather than content.

 

As for the part in bold, I would like to share a gentle reminder I received from someone I have come to consider a dear friend:

 

Depth? Breadth? Does it matter? Just do what is best at the moment and Love Your Kids.

 

The time we have with our children is in a sense far too short. Sometimes I think we would do better to close the computer, shut the door, and sit quietly with what we know about our children and what their goals and our goals are for the future. Whether you need to pray or contemplate the world at large, do so. Naive? Oh yes! Necessary? I really think so. So often we know in our heart at a gut level what needs to be done, although not necessarily how to do it. But the what part has to come first and it has to be true to your child and to you.

 

On a side note, I am wondering if there is something we could do like run a continuous thread "From the heart..." or something like that which would give us a chance to keep an ongoing dialogue open that allows posters to explore the more difficult issues of homeschooling. We can tag them for indicating more specific topics. When they hit a certain page number, you could start "From the Heart, Pt.2" and link to the previous thread. I don't know. It would keep a thread from getting too unwieldy and allow conversation to meander as it tends to anyway without limiting it to a specific topic. Or not.:D

[jonnia]

Though I was initially daunted by the sheer number of posts on this thread, I'm so glad I dove in to read. There is much to think about.

 

Thanks to all of you for sharing!

[Nan in Mass]

Yes - LOVE THEM. LOVE THEM NOW. Tonight, my sons are waiting to hear if one of their close friends, the one they've been scaring me by fishing with this summer, is going to make it through the night. He was quadding without a helmet and broke his skull. He is in intensive care in Boston now. He is such a survivor that nobody can imagine him dead. He has survived numerous accidents, since he has had a hard life and lives hard, but this... Go hug your children tight. And tell them to wear their helmets. And seatbelts. And lifejackets. Life between 15 and 25 is so tenuous.

[PeterPan]

Oh my lands Nan, that's horrible.

[ouzel]

There's a lot of great information on this thread. We used a "broad approach" for my eldest from about 6-9 yo, but he hated it. We switched to a deep approach with nice payoffs. This child has always been academically strong across the board, so letting him go deep wasn't at all scary. He begins high school this year and we'll broaden once again. He is ready for that and he brings with it some very strong and deep interests from which to draw.

 

My 12 yo son has been studying one main subject deeply all along. He has not been broad and strong across the board. In those early years, he was definitely lagging behind in certain core subjects and skills, but not now. The strength of "depth" for him is that he connects everything to this interest, giving him reasons to work at mastering all sorts of things from reading to writing to spelling to drawing to music to math to a second language to geography and history to botany and the list goes on and on. His sense of delight in new discoveries is utterly charming. The best part is that whatever he connects to that web of information is remembered! It is his and I can only wish that I'd had the same type of education.

 

The best wisdom a veteran homeschool mom passed on to me:

If your child learns something deeply, he can apply that process of learning to any other subject.

[Nan in Mass]

In 48 hours we'll know if he is likely to make it. Then we'll have to wait to find out if he is still the same person.

[Corraleno]

On a side note, I am wondering if there is something we could do like run a continuous thread "From the heart..." or something like that which would give us a chance to keep an ongoing dialogue open that allows posters to explore the more difficult issues of homeschooling. We can tag them for indicating more specific topics. When they hit a certain page number, you could start "From the Heart, Pt.2" and link to the previous thread. I don't know. It would keep a thread from getting too unwieldy and allow conversation to meander as it tends to anyway without limiting it to a specific topic. Or not.:D

How about a social group instead? I just created one called Quirky Kids, with the description of "for parents trying to adapt classical methods to quirky kids." That might be a good way for all of us to keep the conversation going, and continue to share resources and experiences.

 

Jackie

[Nan in Mass]

Great! We are very happy with the work on skills and read a lot but don't do anything with it/project/travel/books-on-tape/documentaries/doing approach Don't discount lots of just plain reading (not trying to do anything with the knowledge). Reserve the right to direct teach when you think it necessary. And don't forget to keep checking that they can do those academic skills at progressively higher levels. Remember all the stories floating around about people who found school really easy and didn't do much in high school for their A's, and then discovered in college that they had no study skills and it was a problem. Keep checking that the skills keep up with the age. You may have to get to college level textbooks before you figure out that they really do need those skills. I think a lot of you have children who just haven't gotten to the age when they actually need some of those WTM skills yet, and that is why they don't seem that important. Or you have children who are only going to get a little way into those skills with a lot of hard work, so you are finding work-arounds. I think you should keep working on narration of reading (non-fiction), grammar and vocabulary (the key to upping reading level - we substituted Latin for these), keeping materials organized, dictation, outlining or graphic organizers, creative problem-solving, writing, drawing, memorizing (how to and building up), and researching, a little a day for a limited amount of time, even if you are doing them at the second grade level and your child is twice that age, even if you aren't getting anywhere very fast. Better to do that than discover when they are 16 and needing to produce adult level output that they really do need those skills (like I did - sigh).

-Nan

Edited July 17, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[swimmermom3]

Yes - LOVE THEM. LOVE THEM NOW. Tonight, my sons are waiting to hear if one of their close friends, the one they've been scaring me by fishing with this summer, is going to make it through the night. He was quadding without a helmet and broke his skull. He is in intensive care in Boston now. He is such a survivor that nobody can imagine him dead. He has survived numerous accidents, since he has had a hard life and lives hard, but this... Go hug your children tight. And tell them to wear their helmets. And seatbelts. And lifejackets. Life between 15 and 25 is so tenuous.

 

Oh Nan, my heart is with you, your family, the young man, and his family. Extra hugs to you.

[Nan in Mass]

I have never understood how social groups work. What are they? I have been using the accelerated board for this, since even though my children aren't accelerated particularly, they share many of the same odd traits, everything from chewing holes in their shirts to not being able to bear to watch videos where the least bad thing happened until they were past 12 to being extremely high strung.

[swimmermom3]

Great! We are very happy with the work on skills and read a lot but don't do anything with it/project/travel/books-on-tape/documentaries/doing approach Don't discount lots of just plain reading (not trying to do anything with the knowledge). Reserve the right to direct teach when you think it necessary. And don't forget to keep checking that they can do those academic skills at progressively higher levels. Remember all the stories floating around about people who found school really easy and didn't do much in high school for their A's, and then discovered in college that they had no study skills and it was a problem. Keep checking that the skills keep up with the age. You may have to get to college level textbooks before you figure out that they really do need those skills.

-Nan

 

:lol:You must have known me in my youth. For me, the fertilizer hit the fan when I went to graduate school. I am very good at working the educational system but those graduate professors are a savvy bunch. My writing skills were fine but my research skills were sorely lacking as were several other areas. It is difficult to learn study skills while digesting graduate level information. A much better plan would have been to learn the skills earlier. My dd faced this crisis much earlier than I did. By high school she was missing basic study skills that kids, who had to work harder academically, had developed and were in the processing of fine tuning.

 

I could also use my transition from undergraduate to graduate work as a cautionary tale. Never say "never" when it comes to your kids and basic subjects. No one that knew me would ever have seen the move from a BS in Journalism to an MBA. I really wish I had taken more math classes. That stats class about did me in.:tongue_smilie:

[prairiegirl]

Oh, Nan, I am so sorry about this young man. How horrible! And how horrible for your sons. I will keep them all in my prayers. Please let us know how he is doing tomorrow.

 

 

I have been thinking all week: What am I going to do when this thread wanes? I'm not going to have anything to analyze or think about. I am not big on social groups but for this I will make an exception. I will go join now (if I can figure out how to do it ;) )

[prairiegirl]

Oh, and I forgot something. I agree with Jackie about how memory works. I think it correlates with interest and hands on acitivity.

 

My 7yr. old cannot remember peoples' names very well even extended family names but she knows all about Hypatia, who she was and how she died. We only read about Hypatia but obviously her story hit a chord with my dd. I find it odd that she can't remember who her aunts are but she knows all about people who have been dead for thousands of years. :001_smile:

[Capt_Uhura]

Nan, I'll be thinking of your boys and their friend.

[Corraleno]

I have never understood how social groups work. What are they? I have been using the accelerated board for this, since even though my children aren't accelerated particularly, they share many of the same odd traits, everything from chewing holes in their shirts to not being able to bear to watch videos where the least bad thing happened until they were past 12 to being extremely high strung.

Social Groups are like mini-boards within the board. The problem with most of them is there's a flurry of activity when they're first set up, then no one uses them. But if people do use them as a board-within-the-board, then they're quite useful because it's a way to keep all the information and conversations on a specific theme or topic in one place, rather than sorting through the huge volume of posts on the main boards. I'm forever trying to re-find a post that I read in the past, only to be totally frustrated by the fact that I can't remember the title or who started it or what any of the tags were. And you can subscribe to Social Groups, so you know when there are new posts.

 

Social Groups also have a place to post photos, which could be cool for those of us whose kids are very project-oriented.

 

Try it out: Quirky Kids

 

Jackie

[Corraleno]

Nan, I'll be thinking of your boys and their friend.

Me, too. :grouphug:

 

That kind of thing is exactly why I'm the Mean Mom about helmets. I was thrown off a horse once and landed on my head and neck, and there's no question the helmet saved my life.

 

Jackie

[elegantlion]

Yes - LOVE THEM. LOVE THEM NOW. Tonight, my sons are waiting to hear if one of their close friends, the one they've been scaring me by fishing with this summer, is going to make it through the night. He was quadding without a helmet and broke his skull. He is in intensive care in Boston now. He is such a survivor that nobody can imagine him dead. He has survived numerous accidents, since he has had a hard life and lives hard, but this... Go hug your children tight. And tell them to wear their helmets. And seatbelts. And lifejackets. Life between 15 and 25 is so tenuous.

 

My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family. :grouphug:

[PeterPan]

Julia, does your dd ever see the family names written? It may be she is retaining things she reads but not what she hears. If I sit through a lecture, phonecall, ANYTHING, I always make written notes. You know I really want to remember your name when I meet you, because I write it down. If I don't, it's gone, quickly and utterly. But I've been known to dredge up a phone number I read a year earlier. I suppose there could be something clinical to it. I was just reading around here about the types of dyslexia (dyseidetic and dysphonetic, the one being people with visual processing problems, the other with auditory processing problems). I'm not dyslexic, lol, merely not an auditory learner AT ALL. I've found ways to live with it, but for my dd and anyone who wants to do something about it there certainly are options. I'm pursuing PACE therapy for her (after we finish the VT and OT) to build her ability to learn and process in more ways.

 

This is totally unrelated I guess, but as a further bit of trivia for you, when they did the VT evaluation (vision therapy) they told me she was an auditory processor. Well I couldn't figure out what that meant, given that she always says she learns better visually. I think they were referring to how she thinks through information, in terms of words vs. pictures. So anyways, she has this "E" chart she is supposed to read, where the E's are turned every which way. I look at the chart and say up/down/left/right. She looks at the chart and sees E/M/W/3. Go figure. So there's something, both to how people take in information best in order to remember it and how they categorize and think through information they get. I have discovered that she also JUST learned the alphabet. Astonishing but true. I thought she knew it, considering we had done SWR for years, all sorts of basic workbooks, sang the alphabet song (two different versions in fact!) in K5, etc. But we had this peripheral vision exercise for VT requiring her to touch the letters of the alphabet scattered around a focal point. She kept complaining they ought to give her a list of the alphabet, which flabbergasted me! Well now, after doing that exercise how many times, I hear her out in the yard, on her own time, going through the alphabet song VERY VERY CAREFULLY, enunciating each and every letter, almost as if she is touching them in her mind. It was the most amazing thing. So she knew the letters but didn't really know them. It had never clicked or processed right in her mind. I think all the letter names were just a jumble of nonsense sounds to her, because that's rather how she sang it, as I think of it in retrospect.

 

So how you know whether it's learning style or that they have a processing issue, that I don't know. I'm just tossing all that out for your fascination and consideration. As a temporary measure you might try having her write the names down. I used to forget all my school teachers' names over Christmas break. They should have kept putting them on the board after the first week. ;)

Edited July 18, 2010 by OhElizabeth

[BlsdMama]

May I comment before I read everyone's comments? Because if I get sidetracked and read all the comments I might forget what it is I feel the need to say. :P

 

Breadth vs. Depth?

 

Wow. Isn't that the constant see-saw?

 

Ten years of homeschooling this year and basically it sums up the same issue I have every year.

 

And for the first time I'm choosing DEPTH.

 

But I have the luxury of choosing depth because for the last ten years of her education, I've chosen breadth.

 

Take the sponge, fill it up with every drop of water it can hold. :)

 

Choose breadth so that when they're ready to dig deep, they know WHERE to start digging. What good is depth when they are young and have no idea where to put the shovel? What good is breadth to the older student who has learned so much and know needs to learn how to really sink her teeth into something and grab hold?

 

To me, breadth is the learning of learning. They learn what is in the world, how it was created, what was created, the relationships of all those things to one another. Depth is the love of learning... Enjoying something so thoroughly that you want to know more and more and more. But depth is never achieved without inspiration. And how is someone inspired unless they know something is wonderful?

 

I'm one of those people who always wonders about what I don't know... People fascinate me. Relationships between people and their world fascinates me. The world fascinates me. It certainly isn't from my public school education, lol.

 

But, through all this, never forget the end goal...

 

And that's *not* the ivy league college. It's a child that is strong, thorough, capable, educated, and curious. (And for me? Christian. That's my first goal.)

[Kareni]

I am reading this thread with great pleasure and only wishing I had something of substance to add to it.

 

There's a game your daughter might enjoy called Lie-brary. With each turn there's a card with the title and a very brief plot summary (three or so sentences) of a book from one of various genres. The players have to come up with a plausible first line. One player then reads all the entries plus the book's actual opening line, and everybody tries to guess which is the real one. As your kids get a feel for style and genre this can become quite challenging!

 

I'd never heard of Liebrary, but it sounds like a lot of fun. It reminds me of one of my family's favorite games, Wise and Otherwise, in which players create endings to obscure sayings from around the world.

 

Many thanks to all who have posted in this thread.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[swimmermom3]

Thanks to the conversation on this thread and help from Jackie (Correleno) and KarenAnne, I have turned next year's science plan on it's head. From almost the moment I made the decision, things have flowed into place at an alarming rate. I narrowed the scope, focused the studies while considering primarily my son's interests. I told my dh about the plans to make everything more hands-on and out in the world. Today, he took the boys on an ill-fated trip to the coast where the activity they wanted to participate in was canceled. They spent the day meandering in area of the coast they had never been down before. Swimmer Dude asked my dh tons of questions about tides and such. Dh thought I should switch my ocean studies to this fall to take advantage of the interest and good weather. That would move geology to spring and dh had made plans last year for a trip to the eastern part of the state to check out rock formations. We didn't get to do the trip and he's decided spring break would be a great time to put those plans into place this year.

 

For oceanography this fall, I had planned on a day trip to a coastal aquarium. I had no clue that there is a marine biology lab in the same town and they have a homeschool day in the fall that includes 6 hours of classwork for the kids and a 4 hour professional development session for the parents. Where have I been and why does it take me so long to learn my lesson? Every time I pay close attention to those gentle intuitional nudges, things fall into place. Of course, reading 40 pages of inspiration helped a lot.

 

I digress, but it's been such an exciting afternoon and I finally am feeling re-energized about school and the best part is that the Dude actually showed some excitement at the plans. Typically, he does not care to discuss school outside of school. He doesn't care to discuss school while in school either.:tongue_smilie:

Edited July 18, 2010 by swimmermom3

[Capt_Uhura]

Swimmermom - your plans sound wonderful! And I love that your DH is involved.

[Peela]

Whew, I have managed to read most of this today. I think if I was comfortable with the other modes of seeing the threads (hybrid etc), some of the posts would be in context better...but still, so much wonderful, wonderful experience is shared here. It feels very real.

 

I don't know the answer to the depth/breadth question. I have gone both ways at times and I am not sure one is really better than the other around here. I think I have gone one way or the other according to my convictions at the time (eg the publication of LCC made an impact). I am not sure either way is significantly better for my kids. I am probably still trying to go for the breadth now...my kids are 16 and 14, and dd16 is going to a type of full time college in February (she will be 16.5) and definitely specialising...Mass Communication. I am trying to cram in some basic French because we have failed miserably at it but her Dad wants to take her to Paris for a week....to cover Modern History well because she is going into Journalism...to cover more Maths just because she feels she should get up to a certain level....writing through Home2Teach (and other programs in between)...a correspondence course in Media Studies which is supposed to be full time but she is taking longer...and Reading just to cover various things I wanted her to get to.

SHe is an artist at heart and while people call her very talented, spending a couple of hours a day for the last 10 years drawing and painting has, I am sure helped her talent somewhat. She is dedicated and obsessed with her art, and with photography. She is currently downloading 400 photos she took at a Ball she went to last night.

She also is a natural manager, and organiser, and is involved in all sorts of committees (such as organising the Ball last night) and may soon be the state Chairman for Venturers (Scouts for 14-18yos here). She is also a sailor. Homeschooling has given her the time to follow these passions and even though I havent pushed the academics too hard....it looks like its all going to be fine and she wants to go to uni and it doesn't look like it will be a problem.

 

I think Nan has a point about letting the kids be to some extent and not over obsessing or over scheduling them. Give them some space. But its hard to say what will work for every child when it works just for your own, as many posts here have discussed.

 

I wait to see what will unfold for ds14. He wants to be an entrepreneur, a business man, and get rich :). He is a natural salesman type personality. But he has LDs, is non academic, and I don't know how to specialise for him other than keep working on his basic skills in all skill areas, and keep him reading and learning about the world. I love history so it is a bias I have, and I feel it is a gateway into understanding the world. It gives context to modern day events, and I think in many ways i have used it to start many conversations about values, spirituality, deep concepts....so it is a doorway, but so could many other subjects be, or just reading. I just used history. So thats my content subject we have focused on but also because it is such a great thing to bounce off to so many other things.

 

I am just sharing but I don't have anything amazing to add. I have appreciated reading the thread because it humanises us all. No matter what our ideals...its not all clean cut like it looks in TWTM. I dont think that that undermines the value of TWTM. It is a great place to start, to give valuable structure, and a place to aim in the beginning especially when its all so overwhelming. But after a while, we all become experts, really. We can learn from each other, but no one has our own unique kids or life situaitons, and thats why homeschooling is so great- it is personal, not generic. School is generic. But thats what makes it so scary...generic feels safe, but free flying, adapting, changing our minds, making mistakes, having gaps...its scary.

 

I am glad we covered so much while the kids were younger. We could have done without my stress levels, but I dont feel any of it was wasted. Even starting and giving up on things like abstract Logic was not wasted.

 

But my family all have a lot of Gemini in us, and two of us are Geminis. We tend toward breadth rather than depth. In the end, I go for finding some sort of balance in our life as a whole...and the depth is often in other areas than academic.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I just want to thank all of you who have contributed to this thread. It has confirmed some of my ideas and challenged others. I still feel like I need to concentrate on math and LA but my thoughts on how to best teach science are changing. Dh and I both have science based professions and it's very hard to get away from the example of how we were taught. We have always been a family that watched documentaries, discussed things, took trips. I just always thought of that as 'extra' and not the actual curriculum KWIM? Anyway thanks so much for all the combined wisdom. My kids would thank you if they knew.

[prairiegirl]

Julia, does your dd ever see the family names written? It may be she is retaining things she reads but not what she hears. ;)

 

Elizabeth, your suggestion would be helpful but my dd does not know how to read. This is part of the problem. She is 7 1/2 and still does not know all of her letter sounds. I have tried for the past 3 years to teach them to her but she just can't remember them. We are using LiPS with her right now and it seems to be working. She now knows half of her letter sounds but it is still a struggle with her. It seems that learning things sensorily is the way that works better for her.

 

This is why the idea of educating this particular child scares me but I know that if she was in school it would be far worse. She has problems remembering letter sounds, math facts but she has an amazing memory for history and science things. One time we were talking about something (can't remember what it was) and she said, "Remember? that happened in Robinson Crusoe?" Now, we read RC a year and a half earlier. I wasn't even reading it to her, I was reading it to her sister and I didn't think she was even in the room when I was reading it. So she has an amazing memory but for only certain things. I think her memory is engaged when it is accompanied with sensory activtivities plus her interest. Writing things down per your suggestion would be a great idea if she knew how to read. :D

 

I know that many people would suggest testing and therapy of some sort to help me figure her out but we live in a rural area (I mean really rural) and we do not have access to testing through the community. The only way I can get testing done is through the school system and they have told me that unless my children are in the school ( where they should be) then they will not help me at all. I have tried fighting this. I have written letters to our MLA, and Premier ( we live in Canada) and the answer has all been the same. So I am trying to figure this all out on my own through research and eavesdropping on conversations via homeschool forums.

 

This is why this thread has been so encouraging to me. I will not be able to educate this child (or my other children-- they have difficulties as well but not as serious as my youngest) in the traditional sense. I will have to go out of my comfort zone to find different ways to teach her. This is scary but it is also exciting. A new adventure!

[PeterPan]

Julia, do you HAVE to have a referral, or can you contact these practitioners directly and get evaluations? A few good evaluations might help you piece things together and see some options. If she has issues that need therapy, I don't see how you're going to get around doing the therapy. I know you're rural, but there's always a way. I'm really serious about this. I would have moved to another city for three months if necessary to get my dd this vision therapy. It has had THAT PROFOUND of an effect on us. There's no way any of my teaching techniques or curriculum choices could have overcome the problems she was dealing with. She needed therapy to fix the problems, then we could build on that foundation and teach.

 

So I don't know exactly what you need, but I will toss out that http://www.covd.org has doctor listings for Canada. I would also email the people at PACE cognitive therapy http://www.pacetutoring.com/ and see if there are practitioners doing this in Canada. At the place we go to for vision therapy they also do PACE and were in fact testers of it when the approach first came out. The lead optometrist in the practice homeschools, and her two kids were like yours, not reading at age 8. That was when she researched and brought it PACE. It works on working memory, auditory and visual processing, etc. And there are of course other therapy options, if you knew precisely what you needed. I'm not convinced school evaluators are that great anyway. I don't know, just sort of my gut reaction to watch people comment about their experiences on the board.

 

If you can't get evaluation in Canada, even paying for it privately, can you cross the border to the US? Obviously you could get it here.

 

I don't know, just thinking out loud here and trying to toss out some options. Therapy has much such a huge difference for us, and even just getting an evaluation with a really good practitioner (not whatever the system tosses at you) is helpful so you know what you're dealing with and can decide what options are practical for you.

[Beth in SW WA]

E My interests and passions are not the same as everyone else's. I hate scrapbooking, gardening, photography, passions that are acceptable to the world. My passions include reading, researching, philosophy, history. Those passions do not translate well into this world. So, during the past few years, I have been thinking that there is something seriously wrong with me. It has only been the past few months that I am starting to appreciate how my book has been filled. I wish I had had someone in my life as I was growing up that would have encouraged me in how I was filling my book. Even now that I am an adult, encouragement would be nice.

 

You're my kindred spirit. Thanks for sharing. I don't 'fit' neatly into the current paradigm of 'traditional' mom/wife/friend. I don't even like cooking because I hate the mess. It takes time away from the 'important' things -- like reading and teaching the kids something new.

[elegantlion]

I've been doing some physical organization this morning in an attempt to facilitate mental preparation for this year. This thread has inspired my latest blog post. http://wakefieldacademy.blogspot.com/2010/07/educational-planning-and-caution-about.html

[swimmermom3]

Peela, what a lovely post and your quote at the end left me a little tearful, in a good way. Thank you.

[swimmermom3]

I've been doing some physical organization this morning in an attempt to facilitate mental preparation for this year. This thread has inspired my latest blog post. http://wakefieldacademy.blogspot.com/2010/07/educational-planning-and-caution-about.html

 

Love the blog post. How do you plan to utilize your binder? Was it Nan that marked down skills as she did them under categories so that there was a record? Will you do this? Or will you keep ideas under them? Or both? Now the wheels are really moving here. I am almost finished with cleaning out papers and reorganizing them and have been pondering the whole skills thing and how to make sure I am on track.

[Dina in Oklahoma]

I am nominating this thread for THREAD OF THE YEAR!!!

 

Thanks to all of you who shared your ideas and experiences, it is really helpful for many of us. :grouphug:

 

Dina :001_smile: