The breadth vs. depth question

[Lostinabook]

Thank you so much for beginning this amazing thread! I have over 100 pages in a word doc & will need to edit that down b/f I begin printing & highlighting. :)

[elegantlion]

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.

 

For now I'll probably keep mostly ideas in there. I have a place in my regular school planner for what I call "spontaneous learning". Since I don't have to worry about transcripts yet I won't formally categorize & catalog the extra stuff YET.

 

I tend to be a chronic list maker and (blushing) right now I have 3 notebooks full of ideas how I could sequence the puzzle of subjects throughout the next few years. It's kind of what I do when I'm stressed and feeling out of control, try to control something like schooling. So the binder is, as my mother would say, to help organize my brain.

 

I also have a huge supply or resources that we could use for in-depth study. I tend to forget about them. I'll be trying to list the major resources in the binder to help my recall. Also all of the great resources I find online or from here I'll list to look at when needed.

 

I do better with all of this information printed and easily accessible. I tend to lose things when I put them solely on the computer.

 

As I write this I realize my binder is starting to sound like an extension of my brain, hopefully it will be more organized than my actual brain. :lol:

[prairiegirl]

Beth, isn't it wonderful knowing that there are other people just like you floating around in the world? :001_smile:

 

Elizabeth, I am so happy that vision therapy worked for your dd, but I have heard many more stories of therapy that have not been as successful. I guess I should have been more clear, there are places (3 hrs. away) that will offer vision therapy but I am not convinced that this works. Yes, it works for some children but the majority of stories that I have heard have not been that positive. I have a friend whose son had vision therapy to help his dyslexia and it did not help at all. She spent 2 thousand dollars for nothing. I am already spending thousands of dollars (almost 4 to be exact) on LiPS and Bartons (I know these are working,) I can't spend any more money on something that may or may not work.

 

It is not as if I am not doing anything. I am doing things that fit in our financial means and that sit well in my spirit. Vision therapy just doesn't sit well with me because of my personal experience (friends' stories.) I will look at the links that you provided, though, to see if this might apply or work for us.

 

In reading this back, my post may come across as curt and defensive. I don't mean it this way at all. I am just trying to explain my position. :D

[PeterPan]

Julia, absolutely no offense taken! And you know, I think the experience TOTALLY depends on the practitioner. If you don't have any positive experience stories and only negatives from people going to practitioners in your area, then clearly they aren't cutting the mustard in your area. In reading posts, I see significant differences between the experiences some people have had and what we are doing. I've talked with people going to another doc in the same town who had different experiences (and NOT for the better!). So I TOTALLY understand your reluctance.

 

And btw, we weren't doing the VT for dyslexia. I've heard some doctors blanket recommending VT without specific reasons. We were doing it because my dd had headaches and clear issues with her eyes focusing and converging. She couldn't catch a ball and would dodge like it was hitting her. She struggled with fine print in books and got headaches with even just a few minutes of schoolwork. We tried reading glasses and those made it worse, which apparently because the strain to focus (which the reading glasses removed) also removed the strain to converge. If the two images don't converge into one properly (indicated by her problem catching balls, etc.), then you can get headaches, suppression (the brain turns off one eye or alternates, trying to stop the double images), etc. That was causing her to skip lines and backtrack when reading, because she was having the suppression.

 

None of that was intentional or correctable through curriculum. But it also wasn't some vague thing of oh yeah, do VT for dyslexia. We actually had quantified measures, using their tools, to SHOW exactly what was going on. They hooked her up to a computer with infrared reading goggles and tracked her eye movements while reading. They did tests to see how well she could converge images. It was all very quantified and we knew exactly what we were treating and why.

 

So I totally understand your reluctance to go spending money on so many things, especially if the practitioners in your area have poor feedback. But if you found a good one, a really good one, and had an evaluation, it might be informative (just the evaluation). You're always looking for things to eliminate and to find leads you hadn't considered. For instance I thought my dd's handwriting meant poor fine motor skills, meaning she needed to trace more. Well the VT sent me to OT, and there I got told about all kinds of things I hadn't considered, including wrist strength. When do people talk about wrist strength?!?! LOL Never would have thought of that myself. So that's more what I meant than anything, just an encouragement to keep following the rabbit trails. Visual and auditory processing, working memory, there are all kinds of rabbit trails you wonder about with the symptoms you describe. And what's stunning is that some things correct SO easily. Two months of VT (working our butts off mind you, we spend usually an hour plus on homework a daily, largely because she whines but also because I work her) and things are totally different for us. Our place charges by the month/block, not some set fee, and the harder you work the faster you progress. So when I hear people saying these LARGE dollar amounts, I start to wonder. I mean truly, what incentive does the doc have to shorten your time? None. But here's a clear thing, and the more you work the faster you progress.

 

Well I have to go. All the best on your research!

[Nan in Mass]

I use the search function a lot. I try to remember a word that was fairly unique to that thread and do a search for that word, limiting the board (so the for sale board doesn't get included). If you use hybrid mode to pull up the thread and scroll through the outline and then go to the bottom orange square and click on that, and work your way up, you can see the new ones without losing the orange, unread boxes. It more or less works. Sometimes you have to hit the back button on the browser and go back to when you first openned the thread, if you have lost some of the orange unread markers.

-Nan

[JennW in SoCal]

Yes what a lovely blog post! I like the all the categories you have for your binder and I love the graphic with the globe and boxes.

 

It is a little bittersweet to take part in this thread. It's wonderful to be having this conversation with so many interesting women who are dealing with outside the box kids. And yet I'm just about done with homeschooling (maybe 1 more year) so am not actively planning and thinking about it all the time as I did in the past. There is no more need to organize my binder and jot down titles.

[Nan in Mass]

Well the more-skills-oriented more-project-oriented more-science-oriented year that I had planned got messed up during the last few days of school because I suddenly realized that it wouldn't be a good idea for my youngest to start his classroom career with calculus and chemistry at the community college. So now we have to fit in drawing and speech classes half an hour away. Sigh. I've been dreading pulling out the nice schedule I made and redoing it. Ug.

 

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

No mother in this picture. There hasn't been one for years and years. The school system had a large hand in raising him and did a half decent job, actually. He is a likable rascal and the school system and other officials in town went out of their way to give him extra support. They managed to get him through high school, the first in his family to finish. It was a huge big deal.

 

No word yet.

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I know. I only have three more years, and the last two will have lots of CC. Sigh. Usually, the first thing I do when I run across this sort of thread is to run get Jane, but I didn't this time. I know she has seen it, and I think it is probably more than she can bear at the moment. I loved those k-6 years and I wish I could do them over again with what I know now. I think I did a few things right, anyway, like other than Singapore math, nature guides, later on Latin, an early grammar book, and our history read-aloud, all of which took less than two hours, most of elementary school for my youngest consisted of letting him play games (he outgrew me pretty fast at chess) or do puzzles or experiments and just getting stacks and stacks of library books and telling him to read them. It may not have built great skills, but at least I don't feel like we wasted what school time we did spend. Unlike a lot of what I tried to do with his brother. The youngest had the advantage of having a struggling older brother who took up all my time (except that infamous daily chess game).

I am so unbelievably grateful that my oldest left me his dog when he went off to college. It was heartbreaking at the time, but it turned out to be a lifesaver for me.

-nan

[Nan in Mass]

So could you ever get the year-by-year system to work? I gave up really fast on that system after the first year or two when I spent a few precious summer weeks planning the year only to discover that we abandonned the plan within a few weeks, and when I spent more precious summer weeks planning the years plural only to find that I redid it every single year anyway. Because I feel compelled to keep track of all the wonderful resources that are mentioned here, my husband suggested that I write them on index cards and put them in a shoe box. That works much better for me. I can add cards whenever something cool is mentioned here. Every summer, I dump out the box, bundle the three cards we managed to do, and reorder all the rest. It takes about an hour (not counting mulling time while I do something else). When it comes to keeping track of what we do, my notebook looks a lot like your new one. I hope you find that it works for you. My cloud children and time don't mix well. Neither do I, for that matter. My cloud children and sequences don't mix very well, either. The curriculum director who approves our plan every year described homeschooling as "fluid". I have been grateful that he understood. I like your blog. : )

-Nan

[Guest]

I have given my brain a rest for a day or two; this thread has worn it down to a nub.

 

Naturally, though I have another thought. What I'm now thinking is that I want to make "education" itself part of my daughter's education. Although many of us include our children in discussions as we go about putting together a curriculum, we tend to focus on content and method: would they like to watch DVDs instead of reading history books? What books would they like to spend more time on, write about, and which would they like to just read and move on? Do they prefer this program or that one?

 

All well and good. But as kids get older (and I'm thinking here about middle and high school, although this is the K-8 board), why don't we involve them in the history of education, different educational philosophies, current debates and indeed very brutal fights about education, educational inequalities, the whole breadth-depth issue, SATs and the way college planning can eat up the freedom and flexibility of high school, different companies offering homeschoolers curricula, all kinds of things?

 

This can start when kids are very young, through picture books about education in various parts of the world, what factors prevent so many kids from getting an education, what people are trying to do to help.

 

If anyone is interested in combining this sort of approach with active, charitable work, my best friend is now working in Cambodia (her third year there, about to begin her fourth), and she's started a charitable foundation that sponsors rural children who don't have money for uniforms or a bicycle to get to school, things like that. She's recently gotten funding for, and had built, the first playground equipment in the town she lives in. You can read about her work at http://www.kcfkampot.org

[elegantlion]

So could you ever get the year-by-year system to work? I gave up really fast on that system after the first year or two when I spent a few precious summer weeks planning the year only to discover that we abandonned the plan within a few weeks, and when I spent more precious summer weeks planning the years plural only to find that I redid it every single year anyway. Because I feel compelled to keep track of all the wonderful resources that are mentioned here, my husband suggested that I write them on index cards and put them in a shoe box. That works much better for me. I can add cards whenever something cool is mentioned here. Every summer, I dump out the box, bundle the three cards we managed to do, and reorder all the rest. It takes about an hour (not counting mulling time while I do something else). When it comes to keeping track of what we do, my notebook looks a lot like your new one. I hope you find that it works for you. My cloud children and time don't mix well. Neither do I, for that matter. My cloud children and sequences don't mix very well, either. The curriculum director who approves our plan every year described homeschooling as "fluid". I have been grateful that he understood. I like your blog. : )

-Nan

 

The year-by-year system? It worked well for 5th and 6th (this last year), beyond that I hanging onto my flexibility. Before my current homeschooling planning obsession it was decorating, before that looking at house plans I'd love dh to build me "someday". I've come to realize the only constant in my life is change. Even though I KNOW my written plans will change each time I feel that Ah this might work moment it adds to my confidence.

 

Today I found some advice I had gotten years ago, it was to embrace the seasons of our lives as threads that weave a greater tapestry of life.

 

I already feel a bit more organized. Perhaps if everything is in one central location I can spend less making the lists and more time catching up on my own reading. :D

[Corraleno]

I have given my brain a rest for a day or two; this thread has worn it down to a nub.

Yes, I feel like this:

 

Naturally, though I have another thought. What I'm now thinking is that I want to make "education" itself part of my daughter's education. Although many of us include our children in discussions as we go about putting together a curriculum, we tend to focus on content and method: would they like to watch DVDs instead of reading history books? What books would they like to spend more time on, write about, and which would they like to just read and move on? Do they prefer this program or that one?

 

All well and good. But as kids get older (and I'm thinking here about middle and high school, although this is the K-8 board), why don't we involve them in the history of education, different educational philosophies, current debates and indeed very brutal fights about education, educational inequalities, the whole breadth-depth issue, SATs and the way college planning can eat up the freedom and flexibility of high school, different companies offering homeschoolers curricula, all kinds of things?

 

This can start when kids are very young, through picture books about education in various parts of the world, what factors prevent so many kids from getting an education, what people are trying to do to help.

This is definitely one of the topics in that list of "contemporary issues" I want to include in my children's education. I just got the Noddings book you recommended (Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach), and I'm looking forward to reading it.

 

If anyone is interested in combining this sort of approach with active, charitable work, my best friend is now working in Cambodia (her third year there, about to begin her fourth), and she's started a charitable foundation that sponsors rural children who don't have money for uniforms or a bicycle to get to school, things like that. She's recently gotten funding for, and had built, the first playground equipment in the town she lives in. You can read about her work at http://www.kcfkampot.org

Thanks, I will definitely look into this. Every year for Christmas I ask the relatives to give my kids money for charities, and they love choosing what to "spend" their money on, and thinking about who it will help. I've been to Cambodia and I know how incredibly poor it is — there is one paved road that runs down the middle of Phnom Penh, and all the side streets are just red dirt (or more often mud). I think a lot of people imagine it as being similar to Thailand or Viet Nam, but it's a whole lot poorer. And the things that uneducated, orphaned girls end up doing for money are beyond heartbreaking. :crying:

 

Jackie

[Nan in Mass]

When you feel college breathing down your neck, and start counting how few years are left in which to have a direct hand in your child's education, teaching them to teach themselves starts to seem more and more like the most important thing you can teach them. Maybe that is why I am so very adamant about those academic skills: I have sent two children off to college in two years and I have only three years left with the last one. At this point, getting them teaching themselves seems absolutely vital. That and that modern issues stuff, with two of them voting and all of three of them traipsing all over the world without me to bring things to their attention or to make sure they are doing the right thing. I haven't done anything about the history of education because I don't know anything about that myself, but I have tried very hard to get each child to figure out what he needs to do to learn something, and tried to make a point of emphasizing how they are supposed to keep on teaching themselves after I stop for the whole rest of their lives. They see the rest of the adults in the extended family learning new things all the time, so hopefully that part will be automatic. It helps to know things about how one learns, though. I need to see the big picture before the details, although I can be patient with the details for a bit if it is something complicated, and I know that I need to have a pencil in my hand to be able to think, and that I need diagrams and pictures, not tons of words, and that I have to walk to memorize anything and that I memorize languages better if I have never seen the words written (at least if I ever want to be able to use the words in any form other than their shape on paper). We've tried to make internet and laptops available to encourage their ability to find information on the web. Things like that we have done. And of course, they need to know and have a hand in the educational decisions we have made for them, like taking the SAT and not the ACT, and any decisions we have made that might reduce their ability to get into any college (like opting not to give grades). I guess things like why giving grades is or is not a good idea and why we homeschool the way we do have also come up. My children think I talk about the how's of homeschooling too much. They just want to do it.

 

I will show them your friend's blog. Very cool!

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

That is a nice thought. I think I have a giant snarl rather than a tapestry, though. Tapestry sounds awfully organized and planned...

-Nan

[swimmermom3]

So could you ever get the year-by-year system to work? I gave up really fast on that system after the first year or two when I spent a few precious summer weeks planning the year only to discover that we abandonned the plan within a few weeks, and when I spent more precious summer weeks planning the years plural only to find that I redid it every single year anyway. Because I feel compelled to keep track of all the wonderful resources that are mentioned here, my husband suggested that I write them on index cards and put them in a shoe box. That works much better for me. I can add cards whenever something cool is mentioned here. Every summer, I dump out the box, bundle the three cards we managed to do, and reorder all the rest. It takes about an hour (not counting mulling time while I do something else). When it comes to keeping track of what we do, my notebook looks a lot like your new one. I hope you find that it works for you. My cloud children and time don't mix well. Neither do I, for that matter. My cloud children and sequences don't mix very well, either. The curriculum director who approves our plan every year described homeschooling as "fluid". I have been grateful that he understood. I like your blog. : )

-Nan

 

Nan, I am starting to wonder if I have held on to so many of your posts because they are harbinger of things to come. Year-by-year planning has been fine here until this last year. Like your son, Swimmer Dude has a great deal to say about his education whether I want to hear it or not. There is a thread currently running that discusses a wonderful history resource. I can't contribute. We used it and my son is the only child on the whole board that loathed it. He now quite happily uses a resource that SWB recommends that no one else ever talks about except in passing. In my darker moments, I suspect it's an evil plot. I'll grant him that the writing is more logical but how could he know that? He only reads Calvin & Hobbes and The Simpsons outside of school hours. He asks me dozens and dozens of questions on the way to the pool about the black market, the Taliban, wind power, and military funding, sometimes to the point where I pull over in the parking lot after he gets out of the car and rest my head on the steering wheel. Yet school is only to be tolerated-barely.

 

I cringe when others ask why we homeschool him as the schools in our area are good and we don't follow any religious persuasion. Gee, I don't know, because he's an imp who marches to his own distinct beat. Like the time in second grade when a kid on the school bus handed him a note calling him an "a*shole. We asked him what he did about it. "I handed the note back to the kid and told him he should have had his teacher look at it first." What??? "She could have checked his spelling. He didn't even know how to spell it right, Geesh" Do you know how to spell it right." Yep, he knew, thanks to his older brother. This would be the year I had to go to school twice with regards to his choice for writing topics. They weren't "bad," they just weren't second-grade saccharine.

 

Is he a cloud child, Nan. A moving target?

[Corraleno]

Like the time in second grade when a kid on the school bus handed him a note calling him an "a*shole. We asked him what he did about it. "I handed the note back to the kid and told him he should have had his teacher look at it first." What??? "She could have checked his spelling. He didn't even know how to spell it right, Geesh" Do you know how to spell it right." Yep, he knew, thanks to his older brother.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Jackie

[Guest]

[quote name=swimmermom3;1886206Like the time in second grade when a kid on the school bus handed him a note calling him an "a*shole. We asked him what he did about it. "I handed the note back to the kid and told him he should have had his teacher look at it first." What??? "She could have checked his spelling. He didn't even know how to spell it right' date=' Geesh" Do you know how to spell it right." Yep, he knew, thanks to his older brother. This would be the year I had to go to school twice with regards to his choice for writing topics. They weren't "bad," they just weren't second-grade saccharine.

 

Is he a cloud child, Nan. A moving target?

 

This is a kid who is all set to handle everyone with whom he will come into contact with as an adult.

[Capt_Uhura]

This is a kid who is all set to handle everyone with whom he will come into contact with as an adult.

 

:iagree::lol:

[Nan in Mass]

I am amazed I haven't run into anything yet. With my son, it is inventions. I have spent so very many car rides visualizing inventions. Half the time I arrive at our destination with no memory of the ride whatsoever. I figured out very quickly when he was small that not listening carefully and visualizing each thing as he described it didn't work. He would spend ten whole minutes describing something to me with great care so that at the end, he could get my input on a particular piece of it, and it was awful when I had to tell him I hadn't been listening, especially since he is very perceptive about what sort of knowledge I have that he doesn't and most of the time I can easily think of a solution for him. It will involve a mechanism like the one on my can openner or some other thing that I use frequently but he hasn't seen before. Now I tell him as soon as I notice that I am lost. He patiently backs up and tells me again. It may not always be what we would choose to do at the end of the day, but I think that you and I have a unique advantage over many other parents - oodles of car time for conversations. The people with grownup children that I most respect on the homeschooling board always emphasize one thing when people ask them the how they wound up with such successful children: they say to talk to them TONS. It is as ubiquitous as people with older children telling parents of younger children to enjoy them. You know, it is rather a relief to hear that you, too, have to put your head on the steering wheel and rest for a minute when your child gets out of the car.

 

How are Dude's academic skills? Can you get any sort of output out of him? Can you get input into him in the conventional way if it isn't something he is particularly interested in? Does he appear to forget everything but then astound you at some future date by remembering something? My cloud child is like that.

 

I adore the story about the piece of paper. How resourceful of him. My two younger ones use obliviouslessness like that. At first, we thought they might truly be oblivious, but as they grew older, we realized that they have deliberately chosen to be oblivious. We recognized it because my husband and I do the same thing. And example is when someone trys to tell me a dirty joke at a party. Sometimes I can sort of guess what the implication is supposed to be. I could ask for enlightenment and get bombarded with more dirty jokes, but I have found that it is much better to take the story literally and matter-of-factly. It makes the joke unfun and spares me from more of them. People decide that I am dim and decide to tell me how their tomato plants are growing, instead. I don't think you have to worry about your son's social skills. He obviously has figured out how not to play stupid games.

 

My youngest is more less so. My youngest fits the geeky engineer profile pretty well. That is why it is worrying me to be giving him a non-geeky education. Most geeks I know waited through school until they could get home to their own projects. They didn't do much else other than their own projects after school - as little homework as they could manage, no sports, no music (to name three things that suck up all of many children's time and energy). My son would do that, if left to his own devices. Instead, he is spending lots of time and energy on travelling (especially if you count the time spent on foreign languages), some on music, lots on strategy games (that isn't as unusual), lots on gymnastics, some on sailing, and what is left over on inventing things. You know, I think that is the best description I have come up with yet on what exactly is worrying me. He wants more time for inventing, but he isn't willing to give up any of his other pursuits, leaving us both wondering if we can steal time out of the school day for it. And leaving me (not him) worrying whether this is a good formula for getting into a geeky engineering school. I think he can get into some sort of engineering school, but I am not sure he will like it and stay if it isn't a geeky, inventing sort of one.

 

-Nan

Edited July 19, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[elegantlion]

I pays to go back through the notes you jot down from time to time. :tongue_smilie:Last night I stumbled on some more thoughts about educating my child. Not just in the academic sense, but in the well-rounded person sense. Remember I'm the list maker and I'm working on not categorizing my child or his life, but I'd like to help him to see success (however that is defined) by learning something well in these five areas:

 

Physical

Academic

Artistic

Practical

Spiritual

 

Currently I don't have all of the ways defined, I'm not sure I have them defined for me. For examples sake here's my current thoughts for ds. Physical - camping, hiking; Academic- Latin &/or Logic/Philosophy; Artistic - media arts (something involving video production); Practical - carpentry (this one is pretty set as dh is a carpenter); Spiritual - How to spend time in God's "presence" (obviously formed by our christian belief).

[Nan in Mass]

Where does being creative come in? (Just curious) Is it in the "learn something well" part? I have to say that I think the physical is important. Being physically coordinated has saved my children's lives numerous times. And I like that your list reduces academics to just a fifth of the equation. You might want to keep an eye out for what your son is using as an emotional outlet, too. It seems like emotional outlets sometimes are something that one needs to be fairly skilled at to work properly. I'm explaining badly. For example, playing a musical instrument works better as an emotional outlet if one's fingers are trained, so that one can concentrate on emoting and not on playing accurately. I think this is why so many teenagers play music - they are overrun with emotions and need a way to dissapate them.

-Nan

[elegantlion]

Where does being creative come in? (Just curious) Is it in the "learn something well" part? I have to say that I think the physical is important. Being physically coordinated has saved my children's lives numerous times. And I like that your list reduces academics to just a fifth of the equation. You might want to keep an eye out for what your son is using as an emotional outlet, too. It seems like emotional outlets sometimes are something that one needs to be fairly skilled at to work properly. I'm explaining badly. For example, playing a musical instrument works better as an emotional outlet if one's fingers are trained, so that one can concentrate on emoting and not on playing accurately. I think this is why so many teenagers play music - they are overrun with emotions and need a way to dissapate them.

-Nan

 

His creative part seems to be developing in the media arts, it's also his emotional outlet. He will spend hours making video of Legos or his gaming cards, like Pokemon, then edit and upload them to his you-tube account. I'm very hands off with that, in fact I have no clue how most of that works. He has set up his own studio in his room, with the video camera, laptop, tripod, lighting, and microphone. He found a free video editing program online. I'm not surprised his creativity comes from that direction. My dad was a broadcast engineer by trade and we are a pretty techie family.

 

I've tried to get him interested in music and other fine arts, but he's not. I play a few instruments (badly and self-taught), but that doesn't hold the attraction or release for him. I still plan to teach him music theory, just so he can read music if necessary. Piano was my emotional outlet, so I understand what you are saying. I'm still kicking myself for selling it when we moved.

 

Art, especially drawing, is one area we will be continuing. It wouldn't surprise me if he ends up in a career centered around film or gaming production, so the skill of drawing may be important to him down the road.

[angela in ohio]

All well and good. But as kids get older (and I'm thinking here about middle and high school, although this is the K-8 board), why don't we involve them in the history of education, different educational philosophies, current debates and indeed very brutal fights about education, educational inequalities, the whole breadth-depth issue, SATs and the way college planning can eat up the freedom and flexibility of high school, different companies offering homeschoolers curricula, all kinds of things?

 

Maybe it's because of dh's involvement in public education, or maybe it's because we are far off into the realm of classical education and so our homeschool doesn't look anything like anyone else's we know IRL, but we do have these discussions. My dc understand the history of education, the various educational options available (especially 14 yo, as we went through them all with her recently to choose her high school path,) the methods and the arguments behind them (my 12 yo can tell you what's wrong with whole language instruction and fuzzy math :D,) etc. Both of my girls want to be involved in education as adults, with a heart for both special needs and economically disadvantaged children, so it makes sense to discuss these things with them from that aspect, too.

 

I find the day to day stuff easier when dc understand the "why" behind it. :001_smile: If we're asking them to be oddballs in this world (in education, behavior, recreation, etc.,) we do tell them why. :D

[Joyofsixreboot]

I pays to go back through the notes you jot down from time to time. :tongue_smilie:....

Physical

Academic

Artistic

Practical

Spiritual

 

Currently I don't have all of the ways defined, I'm not sure I have them

 

Ooh, I like these. I realize of course on a mommy level that all those need to be addressed and yet I get so caught up in the academics (which is my personality/likes coming through) that I forget to consciously address the other issues. It doesn't help that he doesn't like to stretch himself.My other kids are so much more willing to stretch, try, think than my 'not in the norm' kid. Even my Aspie seems more willing to try, though you can bet he'll hate it. Thinking, thinking....

Physical~this one is natural for him, not sports but constant movement, playing, being in his body

Academic~obviously addressed through school, just trying to cement the basics with him

Artistic~he's very resistant to that, hates any art project we've ever tried, I'm thinking just exposing him to lots of art/music/performing arts

Practical~I need to up his chores. He has so many older sibs that he often chooses not to do his part.

Spiritual~this one is not too hard. He often discusses God and ethics. He thinks about fairness and goodness a great deal for a 9 yo.

Just trying to form a framework for my own thoughts.

[Nan in Mass]

A Warning and A Summary

 

This post doesn't belong in this spot, but I'm going to put it here anyway, since this is where we are working at the moment.

 

I realized when I woke up this morning that it might be useful to post a warning to go along with my enthusiasm for using TWTM with cloud children. To make it work, I had to not give grades. I know that is a split infinitive, but there isn't one English infinitive for the action of not grading, or at least not one that I can think of at the moment. There are multiple reasons for this, and once again, they divide into content and skills. I cannot write a good test. Good tests are ones in which the questions actually test the point of the material (usually content, since that is easier) and are worded such that they clearly indicate which bit of material the questioner has in mind. I can't do that. I have tried. It is partly because so much of what we do isn't a teacher-picks-something-for-student-to-learn-and-student-learns-it situation. Grading non-test things (and also tests) requires that the grader define "a good job" and I can't do that, either. I have no basis of comparison. In TWTM, much of the way academic skills are built depends on repetition. You do some sort of cycle, like read a book - narrate or outline it - discuss it - write about it, over and over, getting slowly better at it. The student probably isn't going to begin the cycle being good at those skills. Yes, if it were a school situation with lots of students, the teacher might eventually figure out a graduated order of books and reasonable expectations for early attempts. Yes, TWTM does do that to some extent for you. But if you have children like mine, those "reasonable expectations" aren't going to be reasonable. I don't want to be stuck only attempting things at which I know we can be successful. That is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea, one which would negate most of what I am trying to do. At the beginning, TWTM method teaches academic skills separately (via Latin and grammar books and piano lessons and dictation and narration and...). It teaches content in a much more loose, child-led manner. Later on, it has the child practise and improve upon those academic skills as he learns content. This is a very direct, overt method of teaching someone how to learn any academic content. I think we have been debating several things:

 

-When do you stop directly teaching academic skills and go on to improving those skills as you learn content? Some of us have children whose academic skills are good enough that they can stop much earlier than most other people, like KarenAnne. And some of us have children who proably are going to turn 18 before they learn some of those academic skills, forcing us to find non-academic ways for them to learn some content. And some of us have children who can't learn the skills directly, forcing us to stop direct teaching much sooner than we would like. All three of those are scary because they are different. Many of us are trying to figure out exactly what sort of children we have so that we can decide which of the above would work best.

 

-Will we be failing our children if we let them choose their own content? I have been saing that I think the answer is no, as long as they have a minimum of basic content in most areas, you make sure they get those academic skills, and they learn lots of content in one area. Ester Marie thinks yes, that a good solid base of content is necessary in order to give a person the resources he needs to think well in whatever subject he specializes in eventually, that one needs a base of knowledge in order to be truly knowledgable in one area later.

 

-At what point do we let them start choosing their own content within each subject area? TWTM says early on. Public school (and there-by to some extent colleges) say only after you have mastered the content we have chosen for you, leaving only the very good students able to choose much of anything.

 

-At what point do we let them choose to stop learning content in an area? Ester Marie says after they graduate from high school. SWB's recording says after the logic stage.

 

Did I miss anything?

 

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I was thinking of all the people I know who put their creativity into engineering when I wrote that post. They find their emotional outlet in technical things, too, so I understand. I think you are wise to turn him loose with it. It sounds like you are all set. It doesn't mean the parenting will be easy, but looking at my twenty-something-ed children's friends, I can see that some of the most worrisome ones are the ones who didn't have a clearly defined skill set or area of interest (unlike your son).

-Nan

[elegantlion]

A Warning and A Summary

 

-Nan

 

Thank you, grading is one of my concerns. I graded everything up to grade 4. After that I felt the freedom to let it go. I haven't even thought of how to grade high school yet, you've given me more to think about.

 

I was thinking of all the people I know who put their creativity into engineering when I wrote that post. They find their emotional outlet in technical things, too, so I understand. I think you are wise to turn him loose with it. It sounds like you are all set. It doesn't mean the parenting will be easy, but looking at my twenty-something-ed children's friends, I can see that some of the most worrisome ones are the ones who didn't have a clearly defined skill set or area of interest (unlike your son).

-Nan

 

Thank you.

[Guest]

I am really struggling with the idea of grading in high school (I never graded her throughout, and she's now at the end of 8th). Despite my daughter's general ability to get to academic skills quickly, she had quite severe dysgraphia as a young child and still has problems with spelling and punctuation and remembering conventions of language lay-out when she writes a draft. When in high school all connected with literature, writing, grammar, spelling, etc. is all lumped under "English," how in the world do I figure out a single grade to give a child whose input/output abilities are still so skewed? Her verbal and performance IQs have an enormous gap; how do I represent that gap on paper while still stressing her strengths?

[Guest]

There's still one more piece for me, Nan, which is: if your child does not learn best through a spine or survey approach to most subjects -- actually, any -- and prefers to find some narrower topic (I don't know how she encounters them, but I suspect through her voluminous reading); if your child has shown from day one a strong, almost irresistible bent toward one or more particular disciplines, areas, or ways of thinking, then does she still need the general, overview approach with selected, short dips into a topic? If you go through this and she doesn't retain one single thing because she's completely, utterly uninterested and uninvested and there just isn't a way to get her to that point without doing violence to her love of learning in other ways, does depth "work" with this child at a very young age? Is it possible that some children learn backwards, or that they reverse the typical breadth to depth focus?

 

Your mention of creativity also raised this additional question for me: if a child's area of creativity is not simply in writing ("creative" writing, a term I can't stand), but in using different written forms, styles, and genres to process and explore what she encounters in terms of content, how important is it to insist on a program of narration, outlining, and essays, in writing, around all subject areas? If writing in different ways is an integral part of how she thinks, it seems to me that there's a problem (here I'm thinking of the incredible resistance of my child to anything that goes against what I still believe is her inborn wirint) to try to shape that too much, to emphasize one process, one procedure, one method, too much.

 

Aagin, not saying skills are not important, or that you child shouldn't know how to outline or take notes or write an essay; merely questioning the idea of repetitive practice throughout all the school years in this one channel, if this is HOW THE CHILD THINKS THINGS THROUGH. A parent with a child who is strongly visual in nature, who processes through drawing or some other visual means, might have similar questions.

[swimmermom3]

There's still one more piece for me, Nan, which is: if your child does not learn best through a spine or survey approach to most subjects -- actually, any -- and prefers to find some narrower topic (I don't know how she encounters them, but I suspect through her voluminous reading); if your child has shown from day one a strong, almost irresistible bent toward one or more particular disciplines, areas, or ways of thinking, then does she still need the general, overview approach with selected, short dips into a topic? If you go through this and she doesn't retain one single thing because she's completely, utterly uninterested and uninvested and there just isn't a way to get her to that point without doing violence to her love of learning in other ways, does depth "work" with this child at a very young age? Is it possible that some children learn backwards, or that they reverse the typical breadth to depth focus?

 

Your mention of creativity also raised this additional question for me: if a child's area of creativity is not simply in writing ("creative" writing, a term I can't stand), but in using different written forms, styles, and genres to process and explore what she encounters in terms of content, how important is it to insist on a program of narration, outlining, and essays, in writing, around all subject areas? If writing in different ways is an integral part of how she thinks, it seems to me that there's a problem (here I'm thinking of the incredible resistance of my child to anything that goes against what I still believe is her inborn wirint) to try to shape that too much, to emphasize one process, one procedure, one method, too much.

 

Aagin, not saying skills are not important, or that you child shouldn't know how to outline or take notes or write an essay; merely questioning the idea of repetitive practice throughout all the school years in this one channel, if this is HOW THE CHILD THINKS THINGS THROUGH. A parent with a child who is strongly visual in nature, who processes through drawing or some other visual means, might have similar questions.

 

Karen, take what I am saying with a grain of salt. I have two in high school but have never homeschooled high school. With your daughter, I think you are going to have to trail blaze. How frightening and how exciting! Make your list of needed skills, keep them foremost in your mind, and slowly chip away at them. I may not have to teach high school subjects other than math right now, but I have done my fair share of re-mediating in the skills department. It does not matter how you get to the results, only that you do. Narration takes a dozen different forms. My dd may go the whole semester not taking notes in science but will take them on an art exhibit at the museum if she wants to look something up. (Oh yes, the entire semester!) She knows how to take the notes now, but we are still working on the when to take the notes part. Sigh.

 

You will have to continue to come up with unique ways to teach her, forget what is standard practice and certainly don't be intimidated by the rest of the world. I outline my own stuff when I ask Dude to outline. I will stoop to having him look at my outline and see if it makes sense to him. I have been known to make a glaring mistake and let him catch it. The kids don't need to have an understanding of your topic to catch whether you are outlining well or not.

 

Breadth vs. depth. So your daughter is doing the process in reverse. So? Her education may be a bit lumpy, but she will have one. It is not going to look like everyone else's, but she is not everyone else. Thank goodness! The key is to not be married to the standard. I realized this the day I received the call from the counselor to gently let me know that there was a distinct possibility that my dd would not graduate from high school. This goes against much of who and what we are as a family. Now that took some adjusting.:tongue_smilie: Not being married to the standard doesn't mean you give up. It doesn't mean you lower your own goals, but you sure as heck adapt them or it will kill you.

 

Karen, I am genuinely sorry because I think this is a lonely path for you but I have complete faith that the intelligence, compassion, joy for learning, and the willingness to take risks that show through in your posts will serve your daughter well. She is so fortunate to have such a mom. Things are as they are. You can control only so much not matter how trite that sounds. But isn't that a good thing? The actual world is often so much more expansive and beautiful than the image of it I held in my mind.

[Nan in Mass]

Voluminous reading in what? Is there variety or is it all in one area? If I had a child who read voluminously but only about Ancient Egypt or only about video games, then I myself wouldn't be comfortable not insisting that they read about some other things. If it is in a variety of topics, then isn't she doing the survey already?

 

Personally, I don't think it matters whether or not a student is able to do creative writing. I worked on it a tiny, tiny bit, or rather, I encouraged my children to try a bit of it to see if they liked it. The rest of writing seems to break down into two parts: writing for communication and writing as a way to process and learn material. If she can do those two things already, and is doing them, then I would just leave her alone to get on with it. If she isn't able to do some aspects, then I would work on them. I would probably try to separate the bits that needed work and do them separately, but that is because I find that easier.

 

What happens when you give her something to read that is difficult? Does she have a method of reading it, figuring out what is being said, and then keeping it for future use? Would she be able to pick out the bits a college professor would put on a test? Can she do it for adult level material or just for 8th grade material? If she can do it for adult level material, than I think she has already learned that part. My son was able to do it easily for under-8th grade materials, so we didn't work on the skills, but now he finds that he can't do it with difficult adult level materials, so we are working on them now and I am wishing I had discovered that earlier. How are her research skills? Can she communicate what she knows? I personally wouldn't be too worried about technical difficulties like spelling if her writing is well organized and well worded and suitable for its intended purpose, and the logic behind the arguments is good.

 

I think there are children who broaden out as they grow older. In fact, I think most children do.

 

-Nan

Edited July 19, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[Nan in Mass]

Continuing this...

 

What I am trying to ask is whether she already has the skills? If so, she might naturally kick at being made to learn them GRIN. If she went to college now, would she be able to manage the assignments, if she wanted to? There are 8th graders who could. Or can't you tell? Could she keep track of all her materials, find help if she needed it, take notes, answer the textbook questions, figure out what to memorize and how to review, do the problem sets, do the research papers, write the lab reports, take part in the discussions, write the essays? If so, then she is done with the skills part, I think. If not, then I think you need to find a way for her to learn those things. It seems like she could learn many of the things through whatever interest she has, but I think it might depend on the interest. I would be leery of letting her quit math before she has finished algebra 2 and geometry because that might limit her options for the future. I would be leery of letting her loose in the world without a basic knowledge of how our governments are structured (town, state, country, and world), and how people (societies and cultures) and the natural world work. Has she at least heard of the Sahara? Can she say why we fought the American Revolution and does she know that it came before the Civil War? Does she know about photosynthesis and that almost all living things depend on plants that convert sunlight to a more usable form for the rest of us? Does she have a rough idea of how her body works and how to keep it running well? Has she heard of Shakespeare and Tom Sawyer? I think many of us don't remember most of our educations. I think it is ok not to remember. There is not remembering, though, and there is not remembering. If you have at one time or another been exposed to something, you can get it back more quickly and that is sometimes handy. I think there is something to be said for reading, just reading, logic-level spines in the areas outside your interest. Then you know that the information exists, and know to go looking for it if you ever need it.

 

I chose to treat history this way because it was something none of us were interested in (at the time). Mine read the history spines so they have some idea of the survey, and they read a few history books on specific subjects so they know what the fuss about history is, but I don't ask them to remember any of it, except a really basic US timeline (something like that the 1800s contained the industrial revolution, westward expansion, the civil war, and the war of 1812) and a really basic western civ timeline (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, castles and knights, renaissance, exploration, taking over other countries far off, revolutions, letting other countries go, communism, WW1, WW2, etc.) Really basic. Then I tried/am trying to structure it so that nobody had/has to take any standardized tests in history to get into college.

 

I think a lot depends how likely you think she is to stick to her one area of interest. Engineers are a good example of this because many of them manage to be amazingly resistent to any education that isn't in their area of intrest or talent. They have had that education, but they didn't pay attention to it. Many engineers know they are engineers from when they are very small, so it doesn't bother them particularly when they get D's in high school Spanish and don't understand what the fuss about Shakespeare is. They were, however exposed to those things. Was that important? I don't know. As I said, I think it wouldn't bother me if mine were unable to remember them, but I wouldn't be comfortable with them never having heard of them. I am willing to have lopsided children, though. Artists and musicians are another good example. Our society allows them to have less of other things in order to make time for the massive amounts of practice that their professions require. Our society also makes allowances for them when it turns out that they are unable to do something. The words geek and nerd show a certain acceptance of the concept that not everyone is able to do everything, also.

 

The big hurtle, I think, is college. How do you get your lopsided child into college so she can pursue her interest further? Even the alternative-y colleges want to know if your child has the academic skills to pursue her interest in an academic environment. In some ways, especially the alternative-y colleges want proof of that, because they have fewer plans for teaching the skills overtly. Have you looked at how Hampshire College structures their education (not recommending the college as a place to go, necessarily)? That might give you ideas for a structure that isn't subject-based. The same with Clonlara (for high school). Do check out that book about transcripts that I recommended. It has ideas for portfolios and transcripts that are structured in a non-subject way. Maine learning objectives are an alternative method of structuring an education, a list of skills that a student should have at the end of high school. I investigated alternative structures for my cloud child so I know something about them. In the end, I found that we could use a traditional structure and just not fill it up in the traditional order, but I would have switched to a non-traditional structure if I had felt we needed to without worrying unduly about it. In my investigations, I discovered that colleges want there to be a structure, and that if you don't give grades, they want SAT scores (or ACTs - but those are used less in New England). You might be able to get away with only SATs and not the subject SATs if you have community college courses. Some places will accept a portfolio or work samples but not our big, busy state university. There are back doors into college, like doing a year or two of community college and transfering, that don't require any testing but a placement test. I don't know if any of that is helpful or eases your worries, some. I think you might be at the point I was in when my cloud child was turning 14 and I was faced with coming up with some way of doing high school that would let him go on to college if he wanted to. I knew that doing a non-traditional high school structure would limit our choices of colleges, but frankly, they were already limited, just because of the way my child was wired. My big bugaboo was that I didn't want him going to a college like the one in my home town that was full of uninteresting and (especially) uninterested students. That is still my big bugaboo. I am quite sure, judging by my ýoungest's PSAT scores and CC placement scores, that some engineering school will take him, but I am greedy and want him to be able to go one where he will be with interesting people who are working on interesting projects. He has some cool ideas and I want him to be able to pursue them.

 

So summarizing, summerizing? grrr..., Personally, I think you should make sure your daughter has been exposed to a fairly wide range of subjects but not require her to be enthusiastic about them or require her to give much output in them. I think you should choose one of the alternative sets of high school requirements out there, like the ones outlined in that transcript book, or Maine's, or Clonlara's. And I think you should have a plan for showing colleges that your daughter has college-level academic skills and so can survive if they accept her, and a plan for showing colleges why they would want your daughter, what she will contribute to her class, in other words, a plan to show them what is special about her. Then I think you should talk her into accepting this new definition of her education and let her get on with educating herself but within those guidelines. That is what I would do, anyway. If TWTM skill set and suggestions for aquiring those skills is making knowing what to do next difficult for you, then perhaps you would be better off working off a different list of skills and basic knowledge?

 

I think you should ask yourself this: if you let your daughter do as she wishes and pursue her education through only her interests, will she wind up being especially good in something to compensate for the places where she will (proably inevitably) be lacking? Or will she wind up being only average in the area of her interest and as well as lacking in other areas? If it will be the former, then I would go for it. Or if she won't really wind up lacking, then I would go for it. If she will wind up lacking but with the academic skills to quickly learn what she needs to learn when she needs to learn it, I might go for it. But if you think she will wind up just lacking and that will be a handicap to her then I would think twice. That is me, though. And figuring out which will happen is the tricky bit, isn't it?

 

-Nan

[PeterPan]

Nan, the inventive geeks find each other in engineering school and feed off each other. My dh and his roomate stayed up late working through their whole theory on such and such (which I won't explain because it was so cool maybe someplace really WOULD do it), and then were kind enough to call his father very late at night, which he thoroughly appreciated (not). And the things they learn in the classes they DON'T think they'll like become more fodder for their inventiveness. In this case it was a class on road construction and asphalt that sparked them. Sounds thrilling, eh?

 

The other thing he's going to have to grapple with at some point is whether his inventiveness is going to earn him a living, or whether it's going to be something on the side he enjoys while he earns a living. For instance, even though my dh is a civil engineer and does all sorts of things with construction (some of which are inventive), his real extreme inventive side comes out at home. Right now he's digging with machines and installing some sort of super-duper playground you couldn't even imagine. Ok, you could. It has zip lines and swings 20+ feet high and a slide into a water pool and... All this was from scavenged stuff mind you! I have all sorts of little funny things he designed in my house. And he's really good at painting too. So sometimes what seems dominant in high school isn't what actually earns you a living, kwim? It's wise to think through that.

 

I'll also throw something out he says, for what it's worth. He says when he sat in his math and (seemingly boring) classes in engineering school, he felt he had an edge on the other students, even though he was the same age, because he had WORKED in the field and knew where it was going. He KNEW why he was there. To him it seemed many students didn't know why there were there or where they were going with it. So I think this might be almost as important as his basic education, to shadow some people or apprentice or work in the summers and really find the direction he wants to go. Just a thought.

[Nan in Mass]

I am going to print out a few of these posts and put them on the fridge. Maybe that will keep me from climbing a tree whenever anyone mentions robotics or AP science. Sigh. Thank you.

-Nan

[swimmermom3]

I am going to print out a few of these posts and put them on the fridge. Maybe that will keep me from climbing a tree whenever anyone mentions robotics or AP science. Sigh. Thank you.

-Nan

 

I have printed out more than a few of them.:D Nan, thank you so much for taking the time and the effort to write out what you have learned over the years. It's not conventional but feels so much more "real." Sometimes when you post I "disappear" for a few days because I need to process what I have read. It's so much easier going back to the "which book should I chose?" threads than coming to grips with the heart and soul of your education plan for your children. Those threads are a lot less emotionally trying.:tongue_smilie:

 

Do your older boys have ideas about educating your youngest?

Edited July 21, 2010 by swimmermom3

[Nan in Mass]

Yes and no. It is a little hard to talk to them about it because I try not to discuss one child with another behind his back and getting vacationing college students to talk about education in general while the fish are biting is difficult. I asked my oldest about learning to write. Both older ones are great about telling the younger one to do his school work. The oldest one is occasionally horrified at what I am making the youngest do (literature and languages), at times unhappy about what I am not making him do (formal science so far and housework), and at times, totally supportive (math and writing), and at other times, very proud (like his rather moderate ability to play chess). The things in parenthesis are very general. I should ask oldest about projects vs textbooks and skills vs content. I think he is pretty firmly in the skills camp. I can tell you that he is in favour of getting through high school as soon as possible and with as many community college credits as possible so you can be done with formal education as soon as possible. He is against graphing calculators. He is in favour of learning to write essays and research papers quickly. He is in favour of the internet and ipods. He is against cell phones (as a tether). He is in favour of travel and work and girls GRIN. He is against learning anything that you don't need to get where you want to go. He is in favour of hands-on. He is in favour of gritting your teeth and working hard to learn the things you will need to know. He is against the youngest going to the college he and his brother are at. I'll ask him about my geek/science/techproject worries about his brother. And I'll ask the middle one what he thinks we should have done differently. That is a good idea. My father recently told me that he is teaching youngest to think so I have stopped worrying about that. My father can and will do that well, at least for the sort of thinking I want him to have. I hadn't realized he was doing it.

-Nan

[swimmermom3]

This is good. I'd be interested to hear what they have to say. Not about the youngest but education in general, but I know how hard it is to get that conversation going. Do think your father would like a vacation on the West Coast when he's done teaching your son to think?:D We could use a little of that here.

[MeganW]

Good tests are ones in which the questions actually test the point of the material (usually content, since that is easier) and are worded such that they clearly indicate which bit of material the questioner has in mind. I can't do that. I have tried. It is partly because so much of what we do isn't a teacher-picks-something-for-student-to-learn-and-student-learns-it situation. Grading non-test things (and also tests) requires that the grader define "a good job" and I can't do that, either.

-Nan

 

Not having older kids, I have no idea how appropriate this suggestion will be, so forgive me if I'm way off base. I went to Tulane University, and at most of the upper level classes, the final exam was: "Tell me about what you have learned in this class, and about how it has affected your life. You have 4 hours. Go."

 

You were expected to have grown, changed, matured, developed a viewpoint, validated prior viewpoints, etc. in EVERY class. You had to describe that, using content from the class to support your point. Not a few tidbits and facts - lots of content. But you could regurgitate every fact learned, and if you didn't have a meaningful point, you were not going to pass the class. And vice versa - you could have a well-developed argument, but without the facts to support it, you wouldn't pass. In most of those classes, the final exam was your entire grade.

Edited July 21, 2010 by MeganW

[Nan in Mass]

How sensible! I have never heard of doing it that way. It sounds like something I'd do GRIN. It also sounds hard. Did you know that that was going to be your final and study accordingly and come up with something to write beforehand?

-Nan

[MeganW]

How sensible! I have never heard of doing it that way. It sounds like something I'd do GRIN. It also sounds hard. Did you know that that was going to be your final and study accordingly and come up with something to write beforehand?

-Nan

 

Oh yeah, we definitely all knew that there was a very strong possibility that this would be the final exam in every class. And so, yes, we did plan for that. In fact, I always had it not only thought through, but outlined with the most relevant supporting content, then I really worked to learn that stuff specifically. I'm sure that was every professor's goal - to have us not just memorize & regurgitate, and not just try and come up with a good paper on the fly, but to actually think and process and learn.

 

And I must admit, many of them either told us ahead of time that that was coming, or else it was a take-home "exam" / paper that you were to turn in by the end of the final exam period. But isn't that the point? Not just to pass a one-time exam, but to really think it through and come up with something worthwhile?

 

I hated it at the time, but truly some of my most fervently-held convictions now were things that I learned for those classes 20 years ago.

 

PS - I guess it's clear that you couldn't just state a few facts from the class. I took a world history / medieval times survey class, and you can't imagine the number of facts I memorized to get through that one! :)

Edited July 22, 2010 by MeganW

[Nan in Mass]

Well, I talked to the younger two about their education, after explaining something about the skills/content/project discussion that has been going on. They both said they like doing it the way we are doing it. (It is summertime LOL and we aren't doing school at the moment and I asked them on the way to the beach.) The older one (middle child) said that he liked being made to read spines (just read them) to get a survey of the content and that the only place he feels that he is lacking in history and science is in modern history. He said that he remembers refusing to do that because he couldn't deal with it, so he doens't know what could be done differently. He said that he thinks reading the spines to get a survey was important. He said he liked the way we did skills, somewhat separately when learning and then as soon as possible practising with projects. And he said that he especially liked getting to choose his own projects. As soon as he said that, the youngest chimed in in vigorous agreement. It was very interesting to hear what they think they are doing for their education! The way that they think we do school is that they have to read spines for an overview and then "you tell us what to do and we get to pick whatever interests us and then we have to do what you tell us". What they mean is that either I tell them to do something and they ask if they can do this instead (something they think is similar but more interesting), or if I don't feel like the series of negotiations that entails, I tell them that they need to do something that will accomplish a specific purpose and they find something that will do that and then we negotiate the nitty gritty. Apparently, what feels to me like a long series of negotiations and bargins and alterations, often times defeating the original purpose of the assignment, feels to them like the freedom to choose something interesting to do and then doing it in a way that will work for them. They think we do everything that way. It was enlightening. They think it is really important that they get to change assignments into something doable, that works for them, and lets them learn whatever they want. I know that they try to do whatever I ask them to do, and I know that I listen to them when they say something won't work or that they have a better idea, and I know that if I can figure out how to make it work, we do their idea. This is why most curriculums don't work for us - my children manage to alter them past recognition, defeating their purpose unless I was quick enough to figure out what that purpose was supposed to be. If we don't alter them, my children manage not to learn anything. Ug. Anyway, I know there are lots of things that we do as written (more or less) from a textbook, other than lots of negotiation about which and how many questions will be answered. Apparently, my children don't feel that at all. Granted, I pick the textbooks very carefully according to what I think they will like (well - not like, exactly, but think works) and I make sure they know why we are doing what we are doing at all times. I'm so flabbergasted by their picture of our homeschool that I am babbling. I guess the question of why they are willing to do what I ask is answered - they do what I ask because I negotiate everything with them until it is acceptable to all of us. So I guess I can now sum up what approach we take to the question of skills/content/surveys/interests/projects: we read spines for an overview and then do projects of the chidlren's own choosing according to their own interests, but they do them the way I say they have to do them.

-nan

Edited July 22, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[Nan in Mass]

I think this is a very good idea. Very hard, but very good. It might be hard for me to grade, but it would certainly accomplish the objective of finding out what the student learned and making them think about the material and process it.

Edited July 22, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[angela in ohio]

Not having older kids, I have no idea how appropriate this suggestion will be, so forgive me if I'm way off base. I went to Tulane University, and at most of the upper level classes, the final exam was: "Tell me about what you have learned in this class, and about how it has affected your life. You have 4 hours. Go."

 

You were expected to have grown, changed, matured, developed a viewpoint, validated prior viewpoints, etc. in EVERY class. You had to describe that, using content from the class to support your point. Not a few tidbits and facts - lots of content. But you could regurgitate every fact learned, and if you didn't have a meaningful point, you were not going to pass the class. And vice versa - you could have a well-developed argument, but without the facts to support it, you wouldn't pass. In most of those classes, the final exam was your entire grade.

 

It's a very appropriate suggestion! I do a lot of "blue book" exams for my dc and students I teach. I give them blank paper and a question or task based on what they have learned in their course: diagramming, outlining, writing, sketching, etc. You need to have an idea ahead of time of how you will grade it, but other than that, I find it easier and more fulfilling than grading multiple choice. :001_smile: You can also grade it on a curve more easily, taking into account where the student was at the beginning of the course and how far they have come, rather than comparing them to other students.

[Colleen in NS]

the final exam was: "Tell me about what you have learned in this class, and about how it has affected your life. You have 4 hours. Go."

 

You were expected to have grown, changed, matured, developed a viewpoint, validated prior viewpoints, etc. in EVERY class. You had to describe that, using content from the class to support your point. Not a few tidbits and facts - lots of content.

 

I always had it not only thought through, but outlined with the most relevant supporting content, then I really worked to learn that stuff specifically. I'm sure that was every professor's goal - to have us not just memorize & regurgitate, and not just try and come up with a good paper on the fly, but to actually think and process and learn.

 

I hated it at the time, but truly some of my most fervently-held convictions now were things that I learned for those classes 20 years ago.

 

VERY interesting!! About how the professors expected you to do that, and how you went about learning it - this is what I picture a WTM-style education to be like, esp. in high school. And extremely interesting to hear about how that type of education formed your convictions. Thank you for sharing all that.

 

we read spines for an overview and then do projects of the chidlren's own choosing according to their own interests, but they do them the way I say they have to do them.

-nan

 

Also interesting to hear about what your children think about how you go about things. I think we are headed more and more down a similar path - using (content) spines for overview for the year, incorporating certain Mom-dictated skills (like narration, outlines, rewrites, eventually rhetoric/persuasive papers), but letting them pick their specific content studies, bounced off the spines. I think I'm coming 'round to your old definition of classical unschooling, Nan! :D

[MeganW]

I should say that sometimes the exams had more specific questions, but I still studied as if it was going to be the broad question.

- "How is today's political climate similar to / different from that during the Great Depression? Is our country better off or worse off politically than it was then?"

- "If George Washington were alive today, what things about our current goverment would he approve of? What things would he disapprove of? Do you agree or disagree with his assessment?"

- "Explain the impact of America's demand for beef on the rainforests. Explain the effect on the people living in that country. Be sure to discuss economics, societal changes, politics, environmental, etc."

 

Every upper-level class had these type of exams, but I was an political science / economics major so those are the questions I remember!

 

I remember all the architecture students complaining about theirs one year when they were to write a plan to design low-income housing and they had X dollars to provide homes for Y number of people and there were all these govt specs they had to meet.

 

And the health care class at the business school had to write something once about fairly distributing health care, the benefits to society of providing free health care vs the costs, etc.

 

Those last 2 have been discussed recently by some friends on FaceBook as the topics are almost more relevant now than they were when we were in school. That's the only reason I remember them. (Tulane is in New Orleans, and so rebuilding low-income housing after Hurricane Katrina is a very real thing!)

 

I don't know how they dealt with math courses, but I'm sure it was a think-through-and-apply situation as well.

Edited July 22, 2010 by MeganW

[Nan in Mass]

Megan, I just want to say thank you again for this idea.

-Nan

[MeganW]

Megan, I just want to say thank you again for this idea.

-Nan

 

Sure! It's fun to feel like for once I am being helpful on this board, rather than being the newbie who is always asking questions! :) (My kids are little, so we are just starting homeschooling.)

[Nan in Mass]

Would it be ok if on the high school board I post a link to your post?

[MeganW]

 

Would it be ok if on the high school board I post a link to your post?

SURE!!! (You just made my day - it's fun to feel like a contributor and not just a taker!) :)