Teaching "outside the box" - or "Now what?"

[5LittleMonkeys]

I am reading this post with great fervor since my dd11 is making it obviously clear through her behavior that she is slowly being crushed underneath the classical method of teaching that I have been trying to get her to comply to. What I thought was disobedience and then possibly learning disabilities is her way of telling me that she can't learn this way. This, written by KarenAnne is similar to what is going on in my house.

a child who IS trying to do what is right; that just doesn't coincide with what I might be thinking.

I have, in the last 6 months watched my child slowly fading away, her light is dimming and I'm terrified that it is going to distinguish any day. This thread couldn't have come at a better time.

 

I thought I was doing such a great thing by changing curriculums or teaching methods to better suite her learning style, oh, and I even added more time for art! But I was only putting a band aid on a gaping wound. I was only willing to do so much while still staying within my comfort zone.

 

She and I had it out this week after she fell apart upon me telling her that I had made an appointment to find out if she had ADD. She broke down and told me that her behavior was intentional in an attempt to just get out of doing the work I was assigning because it made her feel as if she were suffocating. I was devastated but appreciated the conversation that came after. I asked her why she was so against learning and she told me that she wants to learn but wished she could learn in a way that made sense to her and that she could remember. I asked her how she thought we might accomplish that and she said all the things that she remembered were things that she was interested in and that she took control of learning about. Her fascination with oceans and ocean animals, baking and cake decorating, botany, art and artists, and animal care has led her to be well versed and able to carry on lengthy discussions about each. She has even written about many of these topics on her own, whereas I can't get her to write a paragraph about a topic of my choosing. She has made charts and lapbooks, and collages and diaromas and organized little tutorials where she teaches her 8 and 4 year old siblings about these things. All in her spare time...right under my nose...and I didn't put two and two together. How dense can a person get!

 

Needless to say I apologized to her, she to me and we are starting Monday with a new plan and new attitudes. I had been letting her do science and history in an interest led method but apparently I was still making into what I wanted it to be for her. I was telling her to study whatever she wanted but she had to study it this way and produce this and this with a final project to include that. It was still me asking her to conform to my idea of education. I have to let go but I'm afraid, I won't deny it. I am a box checker, a schedule follower, a plan maker. She is a fly by the seat of her pants, may change direction 10 times in one hour type of person. How do I keep up and how do I make sure she is increasing skill level and learning skills without it seeming like I am directing the learning?

 

I believe we will be repeating 6th grade for her because I feel she needs another good 3 years before we get into the high school level work. She should have repeated 4th but I was trying to keep her at "grade level" (I'm starting to hate that term). Since we have kind of a free year, should I give her the rest of this year to find her path, to get back her spark for her own learning endeavors? To see what direction she goes and then....I don't know....what then? Do you all have some sort of plan written out for what skills to work on at certain times or just a general idea of where you want to be by a certain time? So for instance I want her to be able to write a short research paper by the time she starts 9th grade so do I use the papers she writes about her topics and work on things one at a time like punctuation for a while then work on transitions for a while and so on and so forth? Do any of you use curriculum to give you a spine, so to speak, to work from? I'm not trained as an educator so I need some type of guidelines to follow. I know that is a lot of questions but I really want to get this right for her. I don't want to fail her because of my own inadequacies. She has the most fire within her of all of my dc but unfortunately the highest potential for having that fire put out. Do you know what I mean?

[Mommyfaithe]

There is not a single point on here I would disagree with except perhaps that it is lesson planning a trained teacher. Most of us have limited time, so what I want to know is the process of getting out of the box.

 

Oh dear! This isn't sounding quite right but oftentimes on this board, you see those in the box and those out of the box, but not really the process in between. There are those home school teachers who start at the beginning of their journey way out in left field, but many meander that way on their journey, dabbling here and there as their child or the inner urgings push them. Does that make sense?

 

I guess I fit the bill...and I think I have written a bit about our outside the box teaching on the high school board in reference to my older kids. There is where the proof in my pudding lies. LOL

 

My oldest was and is an artist....her schooling reflected that. during high school her history studies revolved around art history. She studies ans drew from nature. She labeled, she diagrammed. Her writng consisted of research and literary response papers. We read aloud daily for hours (She was the oldes...I had several other children and EVERYONE was part of read aloud time.) We talked and worked together.

 

DD 2's school may look almost identical to her sister's on paper, but in action it was a totally different scenario. DD 2 was an athlete...DD1 got hives from chlorine...LOL. DD 2 is a Nutrition and exercise physiology major. During her high school and middle school years she worked out.. a lot. She got certifications in her sports so she could teach them. She worked at nusery school and at the rec. park. She would rather die than draw a diagram or write a poem about nature.....but she loved reading and sewing...doing beautiful embroidery.

 

DS1 is my musician. His education consisted mostly of reading everything he could get his hands on...making extensive and intricate timelines and cartooning his way through his history books...LOL.

 

DS 2 is my science guy. he reads his brothers college textbooks for fun and then explains them to him.

 

What I am trying to say is every child has his own particular bent. I know my basic goal for my kids is to be able to read well...for enjoyment and learning. To be able to do math and dig as deeply as is enjoyable. They need to be able to handle basic math as well as upper level maths. I want my kids to understand the timeline of history and how it effects us today. I want them to be able to carry on intelligent conversations and be able to communicate clearly in writing....HOW we get there is going to look different for each child. I try to be very sensitive to each child and their passions. It is not always easy...but it is doable.

 

My middle schooler is a writer and illustrator. It is in her blood. She has been writing and illustrating since she could hold a crayon in her chubby hand. I make sure she has the freedom daily to persue that passion...and with that in mind, I teach her grammar, spelling, editing etc. She knows that our Language studies will help her in her passion. Her history & literature is read with the idea that the more stories she knows, the better writer she will become. She is very open to the assignments I give her because she knows she has a goal. When we read Shakespeare or go to a play or concert, she is given new material to write or dream on.

 

This is really how it has been with all my kids...I try to feel out their interests and then make our curriculum work for them...not them for the curriculum.

 

When I think outside the box, I begin to get more creative and excited about our learning and more opportunities seem to open up to us.

 

Faithe

[Guest]

I am reading this post with great fervor since my dd11 is making it obviously clear through her behavior that she is slowly being crushed underneath the classical method of teaching that I have been trying to get her to comply to. What I thought was disobedience and then possibly learning disabilities is her way of telling me that she can't learn this way. This, written by KarenAnne is similar to what is going on in my house. I have, in the last 6 months watched my child slowly fading away, her light is dimming and I'm terrified that it is going to distinguish any day. This thread couldn't have come at a better time.

 

I thought I was doing such a great thing by changing curriculums or teaching methods to better suite her learning style, oh, and I even added more time for art! But I was only putting a band aid on a gaping wound. I was only willing to do so much while still staying within my comfort zone.

 

She and I had it out this week after she fell apart upon me telling her that I had made an appointment to find out if she had ADD. She broke down and told me that her behavior was intentional in an attempt to just get out of doing the work I was assigning because it made her feel as if she were suffocating. I was devastated but appreciated the conversation that came after. I asked her why she was so against learning and she told me that she wants to learn but wished she could learn in a way that made sense to her and that she could remember. I asked her how she thought we might accomplish that and she said all the things that she remembered were things that she was interested in and that she took control of learning about. Her fascination with oceans and ocean animals, baking and cake decorating, botany, art and artists, and animal care has led her to be well versed and able to carry on lengthy discussions about each. She has even written about many of these topics on her own, whereas I can't get her to write a paragraph about a topic of my choosing. She has made charts and lapbooks, and collages and diaromas and organized little tutorials where she teaches her 8 and 4 year old siblings about these things. All in her spare time...right under my nose...and I didn't put two and two together. How dense can a person get!

 

Needless to say I apologized to her, she to me and we are starting Monday with a new plan and new attitudes. I had been letting her do science and history in an interest led method but apparently I was still making into what I wanted it to be for her. I was telling her to study whatever she wanted but she had to study it this way and produce this and this with a final project to include that. It was still me asking her to conform to my idea of education. I have to let go but I'm afraid, I won't deny it. I am a box checker, a schedule follower, a plan maker. She is a fly by the seat of her pants, may change direction 10 times in one hour type of person. How do I keep up and how do I make sure she is increasing skill level and learning skills without it seeming like I am directing the learning?

 

I believe we will be repeating 6th grade for her because I feel she needs another good 3 years before we get into the high school level work. She should have repeated 4th but I was trying to keep her at "grade level" (I'm starting to hate that term). Since we have kind of a free year, should I give her the rest of this year to find her path, to get back her spark for her own learning endeavors? To see what direction she goes and then....I don't know....what then? Do you all have some sort of plan written out for what skills to work on at certain times or just a general idea of where you want to be by a certain time? So for instance I want her to be able to write a short research paper by the time she starts 9th grade so do I use the papers she writes about her topics and work on things one at a time like punctuation for a while then work on transitions for a while and so on and so forth? Do any of you use curriculum to give you a spine, so to speak, to work from? I'm not trained as an educator so I need some type of guidelines to follow. I know that is a lot of questions but I really want to get this right for her. I don't want to fail her because of my own inadequacies. She has the most fire within her of all of my dc but unfortunately the highest potential for having that fire put out. Do you know what I mean?

 

Your daughter sounds like a lovely person and how lucky she is that you are brave and honest enough to sit down and have that very difficult conversation with her.

 

Certain subjects are either less amenable to winging it at the high school level (math, for instance, in our house). If I knew enough, and trusted dd enough, I think I could even let go of that because she has proved to me over and over in the past that she doesn't need to learn in an incremental fashion. But I don't know how to feed that in math, and at this point I haven't found a tutor or mentor who could work this way.

 

As far as knowing your child is progressing -- dd has periods that feel like stagnation that worry me greatly. Then she will make enormous bounds and be doing something WAY above the level she used to, seemingly overnight. Now that I can see this is a pattern, I don't panic quite so much but am coming to expect it. You may not see progress happening on a day to day, week to week basis if you are letting go of some of your expectations for particular forms of "output" -- or you might not see it in areas or ways you think need to be happening at the moment. But it does happen nonetheless. If you set aside some of your dd's projects and writings, then go back to them in three or even six months, you'll see change.

 

Dd loves to write, but I don't follow a formal program for anything but spelling (and that's because she had a terrible time as a visual speller with a poor visual memory for a number of years). I use a couple of books called Everyday Editing and Mechanically Inclined as resources for approaching aspects of writing as we read, but I don't "follow" them per se. I bought a couple of Lynn Truss's picture books on punctuation -- they're wonderfully funny and it's very easy for kids to see the difference in meaning punctuation makes. We also have some books on grammatical and punctuation blunders on signs around the US and the world; there's a website too (preview for content) called http://www.signspotting.com. Cake Wrecks is a fun book that also has an accompanying web site (again, preview for content; some are tasteless). For Christmas dd got a small book called The Book of Unnecessary Punctuation Marks -- it's a riot. These things work better for her because they're so funny and memorable. We have gone hunting for mistakes in signs ourselves. If you do need a curriculum, these are least provide some breaks in formal paper-based work and make language a place for play and mischief as well as serious study.

 

Again, you are really courageous to have had that talk with your dd; I can imagine how hard it must have been for you to hear it, and to see what was happening. I so much hope this thread has given you some support and that your dd regains her joy in learning. :grouphug:

[Corraleno]

I asked her how she thought we might accomplish that and she said all the things that she remembered were things that she was interested in and that she took control of learning about.

You know, I think this is true of everyone — if I try to remember what I learned in elementary school, the only things I can think of are a few projects where I was able to choose topics I was really interested in. OTOH, I cannot tell you one single fact about NJ history, lol. Even in HS, I remember the books I read on my own, not the assigned reading for school. I've learned waaaaay more about science just in the past 2 years of homeschooling than I ever did in 12 years of public school. Because now it's important to me.

 

What I'm trying to say is that I think what your daughter is asking for is truly the natural way to learn — some kids just have a higher tolerance for boredom and frustration, so they don't complain. IME, it's the kids who really care about learning that complain about not liking "school" — not because they're lazy, but because they're hungry for things that mean something to them.

 

I had been letting her do science and history in an interest led method but apparently I was still making into what I wanted it to be for her. I was telling her to study whatever she wanted but she had to study it this way and produce this and this with a final project to include that. It was still me asking her to conform to my idea of education.

I did the same exact thing with history this year. I thought I was being pretty magnanimous allowing DS to continue with Ancient Greece loooong after my "schedule" said we should have moved on, because he's truly fascinated by it and he's learning a lot. His primary interests are classical warfare and the history of science, so I thought I'd be really generous and let him focus on those two aspects of Greek history. But I wanted reports. I assigned him a series of reports on Greek scientists... and things started to drag. He made it through Archimedes, but it seemed like he was starting to dislike the guy now that he had to write a report, lol. I read him a book about Anaxagoras, which we both really enjoyed, and then when I asked him to write the report, he was not happy. It dragged on and on. He stopped reading anything about Greek science or technology, but he continued to read voraciously about Greek warfare. He asked me to order several more Teaching Co courses, on the Greek & Persian Wars, on Alexander, and on Herodotus. I agreed not to make him write any more reports on scientists, and suggested that he write a report on each of the major Greek battles he'd been studying. And that nearly ruined everything.

 

He'll spend any amount of time and effort learning about something he's interested in, but as soon as I change the goal from learning for its own sake to learning in order to regurgitate the material in a "report," the light goes out. I thought I was letting him do his own thing and learn his own way, but I was still requiring "output" my way — even though it has nothing to do with the way he learns or the way he remembers things. We watch the TC courses together, we have wonderful discussions about history, and he's retaining almost everything — so why was I making him write "reports"? Because.... kids are supposed to write reports, aren't they? Kids need to know how to write.

 

So I had to stop & think: what are my goals when it comes to writing? What writing skills does he really need, and when will he need them? Well, he'll need to know how to write a first-rate research paper by the time he's in 12th grade... which is 6 years from now. Does that process HAVE to involve lots of little reports in 6th grade? Well, no, it probably doesn't.

 

I have to let go but I'm afraid, I won't deny it. I am a box checker, a schedule follower, a plan maker. She is a fly by the seat of her pants, may change direction 10 times in one hour type of person. How do I keep up and how do I make sure she is increasing skill level and learning skills without it seeming like I am directing the learning?

Make a list of the skills you think she needs, and when she'll need them by. You'll probably find that the list isn't as long as you think, and the time frame isn't nearly as short. Jenn & Faithe have posted some great lists:

So, using my boys, who have finished homeschooling, as an example of how this can all work, the basic skill set was covered: they can read, they can research information they don't know. Furthermore, they can think about what they read, formulate opinions about it, articulate and defend their opinions They advanced through math and have a broad base of knowledge and experience to prepare them for moving on in life.

I know my basic goal for my kids is to be able to read well...for enjoyment and learning. To be able to do math and dig as deeply as is enjoyable. They need to be able to handle basic math as well as upper level maths. I want my kids to understand the timeline of history and how it effects us today. I want them to be able to carry on intelligent conversations and be able to communicate clearly in writing....HOW we get there is going to look different for each child. I try to be very sensitive to each child and their passions.

 

 

Since we have kind of a free year, should I give her the rest of this year to find her path, to get back her spark for her own learning endeavors? ... She has the most fire within her of all of my dc but unfortunately the highest potential for having that fire put out. ]Do you know what I mean? [/b

I know exactly what you mean — school squashed my passionate, inquisitive little 100-questions-an-hour guy like a bug. And then I almost resquashed him myself. :blushing:

 

I think that using the rest of this year to work together, as a team, to find the right path for your DD, is a terrific idea. Relighting DS's fire has made such a huge difference, not only in how much he learns (and retains) but in our relationship. Having to fight with him every night to get through his PS homework just broke my heart. :crying: Now we're on the same team, instead of being adversaries, and and I can tell you that I would not give up this relationship for anything — not 6 APs and perfect SATs.

 

Jackie

[JulieD]

I have gone the other direction over the years. I am thinking more inside the box than outside the box as time goes on. Although I may be trying to escape again!

 

My education was perfect for me. I had a boring school life that wasn't rigorous or creative or anything really. But for me it was great. I read books constantly. I'd start reading on the bus on the way to school, so I'd have plenty to think about all day. I'd read whenever I could during school, but that wasn't usually allowed, so I'd think about the books I was reading. I often read the same book several times.

 

I had great English teachers in 11th and 12th grades. But I noticed that I really enjoyed and got so much more out of the books I had already read multiple times than the one I read for the first time in class. My brain seems to be more of a womb than a computer. If I give it lots of nutrients and plenty of time to gestate, wonderful things are born. If I enter data and hit print, I just get error messages.

 

And that's what I'm hearing on this thread. That people who work outside the box let their children fill their brains with horses, sea cucumbers, art, multiplication, or Star Trek. And then there's plenty of thought, plenty of output, just maybe not in the form a box checker would expect.

 

But there's always the fear inside of me, that I and my children will not measure up to the box checkers. And we live in a world of box checkers. So I worry. And I check boxes. And then I notice the error messages and sigh.

 

So for me the question isn't so much how do you do it, but how do you find the courage to do it? Especially if you have children who don't push you to stop checking the boxes?

 

Julie D.

[ElizabethB]

How is this for "outside the box"? During the early years of our country, especially in the New England states, the literacy rates were high. Yet, parents and even small town schools accomplished this with few books; i.e. the Bible, Webster's "Blue-backed" Speller, etc. Think about it. No shelves full of curriculum or internet for research and forums.

:iagree:

 

Also, in Wayne E. Fuller's book "One-Room Schools of the Middle West," he has data showing that up until 1930 when they stopped doing literacy as part of the census, the literacy rates of one-room schools was better than that of consolidated school districts.

 

I've tried out 20+ phonics curriculum (and *gasp* started tutoring with whole word methods--they sounded great in theory, but didn't work) and now use Webster with all my students. So far, it's best for my normal students, my dyslexic students, my student with apraxia, boys, girls, ESL students...

 

The 1908 Webster is best for those with apraxia and ESL and older students with no guessing problems.

 

The 1828 version is best for all others.

 

I have a few other things I add in, but interestingly enough, besides my game, which almost everyone likes and is a fun way to get in repetition, I don't have a single other thing that I use with all my students.

 

For math, I have the original Cuisenaire Rod book in French (and I don't speak French!) Luckily, it is mostly written in math. I also do some RS abacus and games to supplement Singapore.

 

I try to do the basics quickly and efficiently to allow my children time to explore their interests. My husband and I joke that they are getting their 10,000 hours of drawing in. (They have both been able to draw better than me since they were 4.)

 

I also try to do programs that are enjoyable like MCT or add in games.

 

We watch educational things on Netflix as a family, although I go read when they are watching shark week, I can only take so many sharks.

 

I also tell people only half-jokingly that I wish I had practiced on other people's children for subjects other than phonics. Years of teaching phonics and experimenting with different programs has made it something that I can teach very efficiently and quickly. I am still working on the math thing, I'm slowing figuring it out.

 

Of course, my children are still young. There is less pressure to fit into the box when they are young. It is also more work to teach in a way that is outside the box. (Although I am a tweaker and hate being told what to do for every step. I don't even like following my own instructions, for example, I printed out the instructions for my Blend Phonics Guide for one of my classes and even had to tweak those, and they are good instructions and I was telling myself what to do and I didn't like it!! So, to some degree, no matter what I use I will be slightly outside the box.)

Edited January 21, 2011 by ElizabethB

[elegantlion]

My son is not always vocal/pro-active about letting me know where his interests lie. There have been many times when I've stressed over something, discussed with others, and then in frustration simply asked him for his opinion. He'll give me a straightforward answer in two seconds and it's obvious I should have went to him in the first place.

Edited January 22, 2011 by elegantlion

[Capt_Uhura]

It's a continual struggle, particularly when you can plainly see your child is so bright but so resistant to what seems like an excellent educational plan.

 

She is a MASTER of passive resistance, a monument to it as an art form, if she thinks something goes against her deepest values or her understanding of right and wrong. As she is overall an almost anxiety-ridden complaisant, obedient child who wants to do what is "right," I can only believe that this is not some rebellious character problem but a child who IS trying to do what is right; that just doesn't coincide with what I might be thinking.

 

A lot of the kids people are describing sound as though they know, instinctively, what they need and how they need to be taught or set free to learn in ways that make sense to them. I think one tool or step is recognizing and respecting that. With some kids this would be exactly the wrong thing to do. But for kids like dd, anyway, doing so isn't catering to her, or giving in to her whims, or letting her get away with something. It's allowing her to honor her deepest inner understanding of what she needs.

 

WOW! You so eloquently described my DS10! That was a HUGE issue when he was in school, less so at home but still a big factor. At school, he never did anything wrong. In 3yrs, he never had his card flipped from green. But he would sit there for HOURS not doing 20min of homework b/c it was much too easy, he saw no point in it, and seemed incapable of making himself do it. Yet, when I told him not to do it, he'd cry real tears that he HAD to do b/c the teacher said so. Then would start the same old conversation, "Then if you think you have to do it, why not just sit down and do it." The teacher saw this in class as well and when she'd give him more challenging work, he'd get it done in minutes. Most folks just see that though as a behaviour issue, kid just needing a good beating but I felt it wasn't a simple behavior issue. This kid was dying on the inside. Most adults think kids like things to be easy and don't want to be challenged.

 

AARGh can't. read. this. thread. must. go. press. play. It's X time.

[johnandtinagilbert]

Thanks so much for this great thread. I have spent this year taking myself out of a box or two and focusing more on individualizing more. Sometimes that has meant changing to a different curricula, other times it meant adjusting a workload for one dc and not another. It's necessary and it's new for us.

 

I also have to admit, I've seen a different kind of box a lot recently and have learned I can't get into this box: independence. I think many, including myself For Sure, have set up some kind of alter before independence, and sometimes, in our efforts just let our kids fly, we send them off inappropriately "to let them fly solo". I get its the mecca and our ultimate goal, but I'm seeing more and more people pushing for early independence. I did and I suffered a lot of frustration for it. Some kids aren't gonna grab and go, so I need to teach, a lot.

 

Perhaps experience is also key here, but over the past couple of years, I find myself being a better teacher, willing to teach from all kinds of angles, outside the box of the programs I use, combining materials, unafraid of the library, anything to drive a point home and help them learn. What was dubbed, overlearning or something like that, I suppose. For me, that's out of the box. I appreciated scripted materials back in the day, when my eldest was in K. Heck, I needed scripted materials back in the day, just to feel competent and to satisfy naysayers. My kiddos never went to ps, so I never witnesses somebody else driving my dc into holes of hatred (of learning), until that someone was me.

 

My time on the high school boards saved me. Really. Advice from those who've gone before me taught me two things: it's okay to find a different way...my box, your box, whatever box works is what's important; and although we feel pressured to check the boxes, especially for high school, we CAN check the boxes off in creative ways or at least in ways that run further than scripts.

 

We lean quite classical, but I've allowed some freedom and, gasp, actually am allowing a little child led topic selections fall into our day. I suppose, that's my very long winded way of saying, I know, really know deep down, that so many of you are so right: it's Not the materials, it's the teacher and I want to be an amazing teacher, and that means Reaching My Students in whatever means necessary.

 

I am loving this board. It's nice to have mature talks about education, encourage one another, and simply keep learning. Thank you all.

[jvenice]

Well said....we are kindred spirits :)

[MSNative]

Thanks so much for this great thread. I have spent this year taking myself out of a box or two and focusing more on individualizing more. Sometimes that has meant changing to a different curricula, other times it meant adjusting a workload for one dc and not another. It's necessary and it's new for us.

 

I also have to admit, I've seen a different kind of box a lot recently and have learned I can't get into this box: independence. I think many, including myself For Sure, have set up some kind of alter before independence, and sometimes, in our efforts just let our kids fly, we send them off inappropriately "to let them fly solo". I get its the mecca and our ultimate goal, but I'm seeing more and more people pushing for early independence. I did and I suffered a lot of frustration for it. Some kids aren't gonna grab and go, so I need to teach, a lot.

 

Perhaps experience is also key here, but over the past couple of years, I find myself being a better teacher, willing to teach from all kinds of angles, outside the box of the programs I use, combining materials, unafraid of the library, anything to drive a point home and help them learn. What was dubbed, overlearning or something like that, I suppose. For me, that's out of the box. I appreciated scripted materials back in the day, when my eldest was in K. Heck, I needed scripted materials back in the day, just to feel competent and to satisfy naysayers. My kiddos never went to ps, so I never witnesses somebody else driving my dc into holes of hatred (of learning), until that someone was me.

 

My time on the high school boards saved me. Really. Advice from those who've gone before me taught me two things: it's okay to find a different way...my box, your box, whatever box works is what's important; and although we feel pressured to check the boxes, especially for high school, we CAN check the boxes off in creative ways or at least in ways that run further than scripts.

 

We lean quite classical, but I've allowed some freedom and, gasp, actually am allowing a little child led topic selections fall into our day. I suppose, that's my very long winded way of saying, I know, really know deep down, that so many of you are so right: it's Not the materials, it's the teacher and I want to be an amazing teacher, and that means Reaching My Students in whatever means necessary.

 

I am loving this board. It's nice to have mature talks about education, encourage one another, and simply keep learning. Thank you all.

 

Preach on, my friend, preach on. Very well said. You also made me realize that we all define "in the box" and "out of the box" very differently.

The bolded part above is wonderful. I slowly figured this out when I realized that I wouldn't want to enroll in my homeschool. It was too dry. So we added in more hands on projects and eek, ugh, lapbooks, etc. and my kids are loving it and learning more.

[MSNative]

Not to pick on you, but how old are your kids that are supposed to be writing 5 paragraph essays? I didn't teach that until mine were about high school age, after they had mastered the basic narration and had some logic under their belt.

 

But examples are not the best way to answer your primary question about checking off those education boxes. Jackie had it right -- it depends on which boxes you are wanting to check. I too think you should be able to answer why those boxes are essential. Formal grammar is important to a point, but my homeschool sun did not rise and set with it. But math was important, though it was studied both through a formal math program and lots of games. I followed SWB's writing advice as it made enormous sense to me -- copywork, dictation, narrations, small research topics, building up to persuasive essays in every subject in high school. Logic was a box that I felt was important to check off, too.

 

So, using my boys, who have finished homeschooling, as an example of how this can all work, the basic skill set was covered: they can read, they can research information they don't know. Furthermore, they can think about what they read, formulate opinions about it, articulate and defend their opinions They advanced through math and have a broad base of knowledge and experience to prepare them for moving on in life.

 

 

I don't feel picked on at all. I appreciate the discussion and input. Still pondering and mulling all this over. Didn't want you thinking I wasn't listening or was upset, though.

 

ponder, ponder, ponder.

[Colleen in NS]

As I'm reading through these posts, I keep wondering what various ones of you mean when you talk about not crushing a love of learning, or not directing your kids in their learning. Are you talking about topics and hobby-type things (like history, science, cake decorating, horsemanship, etc.), or more along the lines of academic skills (like math, writing, logic, grammar, learning to analyze a story, etc.)? Or some of both?

 

How do I keep up and how do I make sure she is increasing skill level and learning skills without it seeming like I am directing the learning?

 

Is it a problem of you directing the content learning or the skill learning? Could you still direct the skill learning, and allow her to choose her own content to produce "output" in? I'm thinking, for an example of how we do things, that I might want my ds to do an outline on Monday, but he gets to choose the topic (within the broad yearly history time period or yearly science area we are doing). And sometimes, if we've had a streak of outlines in these areas, and he says some Monday, "Mom, can I just write an outline of from the book on blah blah blah?" I'll think to myself, will the book on blah blah blah help him practice outlining skills - if so, then "sure ds, you can outline blah blah blah."

 

Do you all have some sort of plan written out for what skills to work on at certain times or just a general idea of where you want to be by a certain time? So for instance I want her to be able to write a short research paper by the time she starts 9th grade so do I use the papers she writes about her topics and work on things one at a time like punctuation for a while then work on transitions for a while and so on and so forth? Do any of you use curriculum to give you a spine, so to speak, to work from? I'm not trained as an educator so I need some type of guidelines to follow.

 

I *wish* I knew how to teach every skill I want my kids to know how to do. But I don't, so I rely on books that help me. But through that reliance, I've gained somewhat of an idea over the years, of a general progression of how these skills work/are learned. And, I do heavily rely on principles in WTM, and SWB's recent writing lectures. Otherwise, I would have been completely lost - my kids would be having a great time doing whatever they wanted all day long, but I would have that nagging feeling that we were missing some important things. That nagging feeling (that I did actually have before I read WTM for the second time when ds was 6) would have been the result of my own lack of learning in school, and feeling like a stupid failure by the time I graduated, after all those years of being the "smart girl".

 

As for the questions you specifically asked - because I have to rely on what I've learned from SWB and some other posters here, I won't require my ds to know how to write a short research paper by grade 9 (and even grade 9 is incorrect here, because high school here doesn't start til grade 10, but I use grade 9 because it "works" in a tentative plan). I will work towards the goal of him being able to write a 3-4 level outline of several paragraphs of other reading material, and rewrite a grammatically correct, correctly spelled and punctuated composition from that. Right now, because I don't know of any other way, I incorporate what ds is learning from his R&S grammar study. So, if he does a rewrite, when I go through it, I check for errors in things I know he has already learned and practiced. I'll be the first to say that I am sure I don't catch everything, because *I* am learning grammar along with him, but this is my only known-to-me method, so I use it. It's working so far - I can't do any more than my best, right? Others out there are *great* at incorporating grammar/mechanics into their writing, without a separate grammar study - I haven't a clue how to do that, nor do I have experience.

 

So when it comes to:

 

math: I rely on a curriculum

writing: I rely on SWB's ideas because I like her laid back but thorough and flexible-in-content approach

grammar: I rely on a curriculum

logic: I rely on a curriculum

content discussions or making connections discussions: I rely on WTM principles, with its discussion questions and telling me how to keep a timeline and what to do with that timeline. I know this will sound like another "plug" for WTM, but I have found that there really are a lot of hidden nuggets in there, that I've extracted over the years, that might sound like inflexibility, but have actually helped me to make things more flexible than I would have known how to do.

 

I know my posts sound more like "What Colleen wants for her kids" rather than "What Colleen's kids want", but for this time, I think that is OK for them. They do get lots of what they want, in the course of our family/learning life together. I am just making sure that they have certain skills that I feel will be important for the rest of their lives (I include life skills like cooking/baking in that, too). I'm also thinking that the learning of some of these skills is going to start tapering off during high school, so there will be even more room for pursuing their own topics of interest, because they will have gotten started in learning how to learn efficiently.

 

EDIT: What in the world does the tag on this thread mean??

[8filltheheart]

As I'm reading through these posts, I keep wondering what various ones of you mean when you talk about not crushing a love of learning, or not directing your kids in their learning. Are you talking about topics and hobby-type things (like history, science, cake decorating, horsemanship, etc.), or more along the lines of academic skills (like math, writing, logic, grammar, learning to analyze a story, etc.)? Or some of both?

 

 

 

 

 

I know my posts sound more like "What Colleen wants for her kids" rather than "What Colleen's kids want", but for this time, I think that is OK for them. They do get lots of what they want, in the course of our family/learning life together. I am just making sure that they have certain skills that I feel will be important for the rest of their lives (I include life skills like cooking/baking in that, too). I'm also thinking that the learning of some of these skills is going to start tapering off during high school, so there will be even more room for pursuing their own topics of interest, because they will have gotten started in learning how to learn efficiently.

 

 

Colleen, I haven't participated in this thread at all b/c I am very much in line with your thinking here. I don't use pre-packaged curricula for the most part; I let my kids interests guide them in science through middle school; I don't follow a 4 yr history cycle, but wander through history based on interests and desires for any given yr.

 

All that said......I do have complete control over what they learn and what they do daily. I am not "out of the box." I am in a box. It is just one great big box that holds all the basic/essential skills I want to have them master by the time they graduate. What order the master the skills, how they achieve them, etc, it varies from kid to kid, grade to grade, activity to activity, but there is really only 1 box for all of the kids.

[Colleen in NS]

It is just one great big box that holds all the basic/essential skills I want to have them master by the time they graduate. What order the master the skills, how they achieve them, etc, it varies from kid to kid, grade to grade, activity to activity, but there is really only 1 box for all of the kids.

 

I think this is where I'm at, too.

 

I just had a new thought - I wonder, because this thread is posted on the logic stage board, if some of the anxiety expressed on this thread, is somewhat a result of where our 10-14 year olds are, development-wise? I mean, I've got an almost 13 year old, who is (and has been since birth) like many others described here - strong-willed, thinks for himself, not afraid to speak up and question, loves to dream up his own projects (I couldn't understand most of his new physics/Star Trek theory he just explained to me, that he was going to make a diagram of, an hour ago - I just know that someday I'm going to have to help him find another mathematician/physicist/Trekkie for him to bounce his ideas of). Yet I chalk most of this more-intense-right-now "pushback" up to his age and stage of development. He's tired all the time, he's hungry, he's growing, he gets bored easily. He gets impatient with some of my explanations (so I back off and pick my battles). On the other side, he's perfectly delightful and interesting and fun and funny. And sure, I learn a lot from relating to him and watching him - I'm also learning how to parent an adolescent. But I still feel, that as the almost 43 year old adult with proportionally more life experience, that I need to lead him and give him some basics that I think he will need in life. He definitely sees things I don't see, he definitely learns things a lot faster than I do - but I see backwards, over our 30 year difference in age and experience.

 

I realize everyone will see this differently, and I guess that's why we each have our own particular boxes we are trying to get out of. :D

Edited January 21, 2011 by Colleen in NS

[Mommyfaithe]

I do not think that "thinking outside the box" precludes setting up plans or allows a free for all attitude. Let's face it, this world is not a "free for all." Sometimes what my kids ARE learning is that they are to do the assignment BECAUSE I gave it to them. period...end of discussion. When they are in college no one is going to give a sh*t what they FEEL like doing or if they fail the class. Colleges are businesses and if you need to retake Chem 101 3 times...well, they get paid 3 times. Fine with them!

 

When I think of going outside a box, I do not leave out skills that are mandatory, nor do I allow my kids to tell me they aren't going to do an assignment because they don't feel like it. Honestly, I don't FEEL like hearing their complaints. I work very hard to offer them an exemplary education and I work hard to give them things of interest to work on and persue according to their bents BUT, sometimes we have to do the time in order to get to a place where we can persue our passions. And lets face it...middle school kids are basically lazy and will usually take the path of least resistance. They are moody and argumentative, which is normal at that age. They will test any boundary or border and will test you constantly to see how firm those boundaries are. It is a very tricky walk to not bend or cave in without ruining your relationship with your child. It is delicate to stand your ground, unflinching, without emotion coming into play when you have a 12 year old Moussolini screaming in your face that the world is not fair, you are mean and school work is dumb.

My dd wants to be a writer...That means she needs to spend MORE time on spelling, grammar, literature & history, BUT she still needs to put in time in her math, because intelligent, educated people can master a certain level of mathematics. She needs to study science, because intelligent, educated people can discuss scientific ideas. She can also put what she learns in her science classes to work in her novels.

 

Now, the number of courses she takes in math will not be the same as my other child who is mechanically, mathematically and scientifically geard...but then again, he is not excused from spelling, grammar, history or literature either...as scientists and engineers need to be able top communicate and discuss history, literature and politics. See what I mean?

 

My idea of thinking outside the box says, this kid loves this....I would like to help said kid persue this passion...said kid needs to trust that I have his best interest at heart and WANT to see him succeed.

There are only so many hours and days in our homeschool journey, which makes me very aware that I need to train these kids to go on with their lives in a very short period. It is my opinion that outside the box does not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is not child-led, but child sensitive. It does not paint a picture that the world revolves around their wants and desires, but gets them ready to persue their God given gifts and paiions in the context of society to be a blessing to those around them and bring Glory to their Creator.

 

My kids have workbooks and textbooks, videos, games, shelves of reading material, art supplies, sports equipment etc. These are tools. Just as curriculum is a tool. It should help guide yuou...not drive your school. It is a nice suggestion on how to accomplish goals...but the goals have to be there...with a vision on how to proceed and where you and your child want to be in the next year, 5 years, 10 years etc. Of course things change, goals change, circumstances change, passions change, so we must prepare our kids for that as well.

 

Homeschooling gives us an advantage over private and public schools by allowing us quantity as well as quality time with our children. We can take them along side of us and teach them, cheer for them, guide them, pick up the pieces when we fail or fall short and move on showing them that life is full of ups, downs and all arounds, but we can still be there for eachother as a family and as friends.

Academically speaking, there are many ways to reach a goal. There are many roads that lead to an intelligent, educated person. The longer I homeschool, the more confidence I gain to think even more outside the standard fare, BUT I would never leave a childs education solely up to them. Encourage their passions...YES. Plan my lessons and schedules accordingly...YES. Excusing my kids from assignments they decided were not worth thier time, or excusing them from simple do it because I said so because I know you need to know this even though you don't think so...well...nope sorry, can't help ya there.

 

Faithe

[Stacy in NJ]

I always feel envy when I see or read of kids with this type of intense interest. I realize it may sometimes be a bit of a burden to be so singular, but also what a tremendous blessing to have a passion at such a young age.

 

Yes, it's me again. It just occurred to me in re-reading Jenn's post that one thing she and I have discussed repeatedly is that all too often middle school and high school education is approached as something that happens at a desk or table rather than out in the world. Just at the age when kids are old enough, interested, and responsible enough to engage in the real world, we lock them down with more hours at the desk, pencils in their sweaty hands.

 

Like Jenn's sons, my dd found an apprenticeship of sorts at around age twelve. We can't afford to own or lease a horse, so dd began to work part-time at the stables to earn extra lessons, and the loan of a horse for a few shows. This has grown and morphed over the years. Now dd teaches younger kids in the summers at riding camp, is taking occasional classes in basic horse first-aid, and is beginning to learn about training. She has learned how to shave a horse's coat, watched the farrier, the vet, the horse chiropractor and acupuncturist.

 

Now this may seem to be thoroughly and utterly "non-academic." But the bizarre thing is that it has produced the most unexpected academic results -- unexpected to me, at any rate.

 

For one thing, working has improved dd's core strength and hand strength, which I hold responsible for an amazing leap in her handwriting ability at around age thirteen, after she'd begun working regularly.

 

This past December, the horse with whom dd was utterly in love was sold to another barn, and in her great grief dd stopped riding for a month or so. At the same time, she began to find "school" work undo-able. She couldn't make herself be interested or do what she had done with great ease a month before.

 

Two weeks ago we finally got her back on another horse. After two lessons, all of a sudden she began to do her work willingly, if not with enthusiasm, and she even seems to THINK better.

 

Yes, part of this is the lifting of depression. But some of it seems to go beyond that -- the bond with the horse is actually conducive to learning in some way. Has anyone read The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson, the story of his autistic son and the way his relationship with a horse triggered his son's talking? I met Rupert Isaacson a year or so ago and heard him speak; the interesting thing for me was that he teaches his son his lessons ON HORSEBACK. They do school on a horse -- they even have a lap desk the child can use while riding (at a walk, obviously).

 

Well, this opens up all kinds of fascinating possibilities for me: it makes me realize how little attention we pay in general to the neurological links between body and mind, to the emotional components of learning.

[Stacy in NJ]

I haven't read all the other responses so forgive me if I'm repeating someone else.

 

Firstly, I'm in favor of structured education. A bit of self-discipline applied to learning something difficult, and not of any particular personal interest, is good for the brain and the soul.

 

But, but, but....So frequently I see on this board folks fixating on just the right curriculm, just the right book, just the right approach...I do the same, but this can be monumentally distracting from actual learning.

 

Just do it. I know it's a trite Nike commercial, but it's true. Just read the book. Just write the paper. Just start the math lesson. Stop fussing and do it.

 

Now I'm going to do it. :auto:

[radiobrain]

I might post more later, but I wanted to say one thing, as a card-carrying "Box? I didn't even realize there WAS a box... I'm too busy doing this over here..." person.

 

What I consider thinking outside of the box, which is a term that is so overused, is deliberately doing something your own way, regardless of what others might think or say. It is about trusting your instinct. I do not believe that just because someone says it is so, makes it so. this is true in my day to day life and in curriculum choices, and ways that I use that curriculum.

 

MCT and Life of Fred, for example, are outside the box in that no other curriculum takes their tack. They are coming from a different angle completely, and for a person like me, who finds the path most likely taken to be a bit counter-intuitive, I appreciate the effort. They are not perfect, and I still tweak, but they are at least close to what I would have written myself.

 

The biggest part is about trusting yourself to teach the way you think is right, not judging your choices and methods on what someone else might think is right.

 

That all being said, I might decide that writing a book report is not a priority, but delving into philosophy might be. I choose what I think it is important for my kids to learn. I try to keep their interests in mind, but there are only so many ways you can incorporate legos into your daily HS plan. I still look at what the "norms" might be, but I want some things different from the norm and more than the norm, for my children. There are days I think everything is a giant mess, but then I realize I am mistaken. It is a long process.

 

But honestly, we are all outside the box thinkers, as we have chosen to homeschool in the first place. Some of us are just more comfortable with our choices.

 

I am tired from shoveling the driveway. Forgive the scatterbrainedness... now, off to teach algebra!

Edited January 21, 2011 by radiobrain

[Guest]

I do not think that "thinking outside the box" precludes setting up plans or allows a free for all attitude. Let's face it, this world is not a "free for all." Sometimes what my kids ARE learning is that they are to do the assignment BECAUSE I gave it to them. period...end of discussion.

 

I don't think any of us here unschool or are completely child-led. I do think it's hard to have this kind of discussion without having some kind of misunderstandings or miscommunications about the terms we use to describe what we're doing. "Child-led" might mean one thing to me and something quite different (and more horrifying) to you. But even given that we will use some terms differently and some of us are more untethered to traditional curricula or checklists (or have alternate checklists), I still don't think anyone in this discussion is advocating or practicing unschooling or letting their kids do just what they feel like.

 

When I talk about honoring my child's intuitive knowledge of how she learns best, I'm talking about structuring her education so that it works WITH rather than against those ways.

 

And also, I work WITH dd's way of processing, retaining, and utilizing information or skills in the areas where that works easily for both of us. As I said in an earlier post, it doesn't for math -- not because I don't think that's possible potentially, but because I don't know how to do it. So dd uses an geometry textbook. She also uses a chemistry text, but only as part of that subject (dh is a marine chemist and exposes her to different aspects of chemistry in different ways). We read books of her choosing and of my choosing. We discuss the news even though she finds it anxiety-producing even when heavily edited (as an Aspie, she's a thoughtful and worried person in some ways).

 

One difference I do see among posters comes from those who see "school" as something separate and more parent-ordered, while "hobbies" or "fun" can be pursued in any way the child likes. My particular out-of-the-boxness includes a much larger and more inclusive vision of what constitutes an education than the desk-bound, "school" part of the day. I also have come to believe that some of the BEST learning takes place when kids blend their own interests and hobbies with serious research, reading, watching DVD's, interviewing people, or other activities.

 

I have a recently published book in which scientists and a couple of mathematicians reflect back on childhood "fun" pursuits that they see retrospectively were critical to their development as scientists. There are two or three separate chapters, many scientists chiming in each one, on Legos alone. There's a great story in which a woman describes herself at age nine or so braiding the long tail of her My Little Pony, then braiding each of the three strands, then braiding each of THOSE strands, and being so excited at discovering the pattern involved.

 

Now of course this doesn't mean I let my child play all day long or do whatever she feels like doing. What it does mean is that I have learned to value the enormous intellectual worth of what looks like play, and to consider dd's "hobbies" not as extra or separate but as a vital part of her education, and as much as possible to let the categories of fun, hobbies, and "school" blend together.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Colleen wrote:

Is it a problem of you directing the content learning or the skill learning? Could you still direct the skill learning, and allow her to choose her own content to produce "output" in? I'm thinking, for an example of how we do things, that I might want my ds to do an outline on Monday, but he gets to choose the topic (within the broad yearly history time period or yearly science area we are doing). And sometimes, if we've had a streak of outlines in these areas, and he says some Monday, "Mom, can I just write an outline of from the book on blah blah blah?" I'll think to myself, will the book on blah blah blah help him practice outlining skills - if so, then "sure ds, you can outline blah blah blah."

 

I think this is the part I have trouble with because it is hard to explain. This child's brain shuts down if she is force fed information or if she is required to regurgitate information in a way that doesn't make sense to her or feels forced. I hesitate to even try to explain it because some will think that by allowing this child to learn in a completely untraditional way I am spoiling her or allowing her to dictate to me. If this were one of my other dc I would say that assessment would be correct, but this child's brain doesn't function the same way most people's brains function. I didn't push the ADD issue with her because it was causing her a lot of anxiety to the point of hyperventilating (and again I hesitate to mention this because of the images of a spoiled or petulant child it may conjure up...this isn't the case although I sometimes think that would be easier to deal with). But I still believe she may have an ADD inattentive issue or some form of LD or disorder.

 

She has no problem learning content information if allowed to pursue it in her own way so the problem with her is getting the skills taught and practiced. Outlines make no sense to her, they confuse her. Grammar from a text book does not stick long term. Math facts are memorized and forgotten. I'll use writing as the example, she struggles to write an outline but if left on her own she has produced written reports on her own interests. I have spied on these processes and she just writes it all out as fast as she can and then she goes back and moves things around, changes wording, adds sentences. If I interrupt this process it is over. Not because she is being a petulant child and doesn't want me interfering but because she has processing issues and if I disrupt the process her brain is working through then she would have to start all over. She can't pick back up where she left off like most of us could do. We have the same problems in math. Long division is torture because if one thing goes wrong or her focus is broken she has to go back to the beginning. Using writing again as an example, if I tell her that I want her to write a short paper summarizing what she has just read she can, but it is extremely hard for her, whereas, as I mentioned, if left to write on her own, it flows easily but only in her own way. I wish I could tell you why...

 

I'll wrap this up because I have to dash but I believe I can teach skills but I have to be careful of how to present them so that they make sense to her. They have to be within the context of something she already is familiar with or passionate about. So using HER writings to discuss grammar and composition, using books she chooses to discuss literary analysis (but in an informal, casual way), using art, baking, cooking and her science interests to work on math skills. I can give her a math worksheet and she can do it but she won't retain it. If I give her a recipe and ask her to increase the ingredients by 2.5 she can do it and remembers it.

 

I don't know if I answered your question or not, I feel my words are woefully inadequate to explain this child...I'm still trying to figure her out and really don't know how exactly I'm going to accomplish many of the things she needs to be able to do but I'm starting to see, through the wisdom here, how our path may be laid out.

[Guest]

As I'm reading through these posts, I keep wondering what various ones of you mean when you talk about not crushing a love of learning, or not directing your kids in their learning. Are you talking about topics and hobby-type things (like history, science, cake decorating, horsemanship, etc.), or more along the lines of academic skills (like math, writing, logic, grammar, learning to analyze a story, etc.)? Or some of both?

 

 

 

For me, some of both. Because dd was so wildly inventive and so resistant to being force-led or explicitly "taught," we did much of early elementary via games. Some were of our own invention -- there was a time when we made dozens upon dozens of "Wanted" posters for imaginary criminals and dozens upon dozens of "Rules and Consequences" (silly ones) lists for dd's doll school; this was handwriting and spelling. We still approach grammar largely from the point of view of horrendous mistakes: dd got a book for Christmas called The Book of Unnecessary Quotation Marks, and we follow the website and books for Sign Spotting -- horrible mistakes on official signposts which are hilarious to read. There was one year where I rewrote her math word problems into Star Trek problems, and more math got done that year than ever before (plus it took far LESS time than struggling with problems that were utterly boring to her).

 

No, a college professor isn't going to rewrite all her math problems. But since that one year, dd has transitioned fairly effortlessly to a regular algebra and then geometry text without me rewriting. We do sometimes comment on how unimaginative the word problems are. Just because you work with your child's -- especially your young child's -- predilections does not mean you expect to cater to them in all areas of life or for years on end.

 

And as 5littlemonkeys and Jackie have both described so eloquently, there are kids for whom requiring particular types of performance or "output" quenches that spark of intellectual curiosity or even joy. This is quite different from the whole issue of "making learning fun" (although I also happen to believe that these two are not mutually exclusive, and that engagement and curiosity might be better words than "fun". Perhaps you have to have a child in whom you can observe this process happening for it to really become a pressing issue. And believe me, it does become just that.

[Mommyfaithe]

I don't think any of us here unschool or are completely child-led. I do think it's hard to have this kind of discussion without having some kind of misunderstandings or miscommunications about the terms we use to describe what we're doing. "Child-led" might mean one thing to me and something quite different (and more horrifying) to you. But even given that we will use some terms differently and some of us are more untethered to traditional curricula or checklists (or have alternate checklists), I still don't think anyone in this discussion is advocating or practicing unschooling or letting their kids do just what they feel like.

 

When I talk about honoring my child's intuitive knowledge of how she learns best, I'm talking about structuring her education so that it works WITH rather than against those ways.

 

And also, I work WITH dd's way of processing, retaining, and utilizing information or skills in the areas where that works easily for both of us. As I said in an earlier post, it doesn't for math -- not because I don't think that's possible potentially, but because I don't know how to do it. So dd uses an geometry textbook. She also uses a chemistry text, but only as part of that subject (dh is a marine chemist and exposes her to different aspects of chemistry in different ways). We read books of her choosing and of my choosing. We discuss the news even though she finds it anxiety-producing even when heavily edited (as an Aspie, she's a thoughtful and worried person in some ways).

 

One difference I do see among posters comes from those who see "school" as something separate and more parent-ordered, while "hobbies" or "fun" can be pursued in any way the child likes. My particular out-of-the-boxness includes a much larger and more inclusive vision of what constitutes an education than the desk-bound, "school" part of the day. I also have come to believe that some of the BEST learning takes place when kids blend their own interests and hobbies with serious research, reading, watching DVD's, interviewing people, or other activities.

 

I have a recently published book in which scientists and a couple of mathematicians reflect back on childhood "fun" pursuits that they see retrospectively were critical to their development as scientists. There are two or three separate chapters, many scientists chiming in each one, on Legos alone. There's a great story in which a woman describes herself at age nine or so braiding the long tail of her My Little Pony, then braiding each of the three strands, then braiding each of THOSE strands, and being so excited at discovering the pattern involved.

 

Now of course this doesn't mean I let my child play all day long or do whatever she feels like doing. What it does mean is that I have learned to value the enormous intellectual worth of what looks like play, and to consider dd's "hobbies" not as extra or separate but as a vital part of her education, and as much as possible to let the categories of fun, hobbies, and "school" blend together.

 

KarenAnne, I wasn't pointing any fingers, just a generalization and my thoughts. It was certainly not accusatory, just a reflection of some of the places I have been in my own homeschool journey. I believe strongly in children being children and having discovery time, play time etc. Maybe my post wasn't as communicative as I would have desired. I was actually agreeing with you. sigh I will go back into lurkdom now......:auto:

 

 

Faithe

[JennW in SoCal]

Just want to tell you, Aime, that you are in good company in parenting a child like your dd. I had the same struggles, the same inability to explain my challenges (and joys) in homeschooling my ds. KarenAnne's dd is another way out of the box kind of child. There may be others with kids like these who are participating on this thread (Jackie -- your ds comes to mind), but these are the only 2 kids from this board I know in real life. Our three children each have unique quirky wiring that makes the most normal of tasks a challenge for them to do and a challenge for us three moms to figure out how to teach or motivate or guide.

 

It isn't spoiling, and the giving in and bending we moms do isn't a weakness on our part but a compassionate means of accommodating -- even though we are often blindly groping to figure out how to go about things. And it isn't unschooling, either that we do, as KarenAnne wrote in another post. It is nurturing a gifted, effervescent, and highly spirited soul while trying to maintain our sanity. The prospect of figuring out how to stuff these kids into a college admissions box is something we absolutely dread.

 

The good news, at least if my son's path is any indication, is that with maturity these unique, stubborn, quirky kids figure out what they have to do to get to where they want to be in life. Having mom set the educational rules is one thing, but to have professionals telling them what skills need to be mastered, what kind of degree needs to be earned is another thing completely. My ds is not going to a traditional university, but he will end up with a bachelor's degree, and he has been gainfully employed since he graduated from high school, not just with basic minimum wage unskilled jobs, but with resume building experience. Employers like his unique skill set and appreciate his maturity.

[Guest]

KarenAnne, I wasn't pointing any fingers, just a generalization and my thoughts. It was certainly not accusatory, just a reflection of some of the places I have been in my own homeschool journey. I believe strongly in children being children and having discovery time, play time etc. Maybe my post wasn't as communicative as I would have desired. I was actually agreeing with you. sigh I will go back into lurkdom now......:auto:

 

 

Faithe

 

Oh, I didn't in the least think you were pointing fingers. I could just see where the terms I toss around without thinking how someone else might interpret or define them might be a source of confusion or misunderstanding, so I thought I would try to clarify. Also, it's hard to describe just how thoroughly different some of our kids are, in a few paragraphs. You can say "different" or "processes differently" or whatever, but I know that doesn't give anyone a clear picture if they don't face the same extreme.

[Guest]

He fought me so much though by that point that he ended up going back to school (at the same grade he should have been in as opposed to when I took him out he was going to be 'staying back'). He failed PS another year, then signed himself out, took the GED and passed with an almost perfect score.

 

So did my applying that pressure pay off? If you look at it from a purely academic standpoint, yes. But I had not only ruined our relationship-I had destroyed his love of learning. So to me, it was a failure. He is now my most troubled child now, too.

 

 

How very honest and compassionate of you to share this story. I'm so sorry! Can you tell us what your son is up to these days?

[Colleen in NS]

I think this is the part I have trouble with because it is hard to explain.

 

I believe I can teach skills but I have to be careful of how to present them so that they make sense to her.

 

I don't know if I answered your question or not

 

Yes, you did, and no, it doesn't come across as though you are catering in a negative sense. Isn't it a good thing you are homeschooling her, so you can cater to her in a positive sense. :) I wish you well as you figure out how to present what you feel she needs, in ways that she is able to receive and use.

 

*Some* of what you wrote could apply to my dd as well. I am having to relearn how to teach some things, as well. Presenting things differently and such.

 

One difference I do see among posters comes from those who see "school" as something separate and more parent-ordered, while "hobbies" or "fun" can be pursued in any way the child likes. My particular out-of-the-boxness includes a much larger and more inclusive vision of what constitutes an education than the desk-bound, "school" part of the day. I also have come to believe that some of the BEST learning takes place when kids blend their own interests and hobbies with serious research, reading, watching DVD's, interviewing people, or other activities.

 

I'm not sure, maybe my posts come across that way, because I do schedule academic skills to be done at certain times on certain days. But I thoroughly believe that education does happen through the bigger picture. It's just that if I don't schedule these academic skills, they won't get learned to the degree that I'd like, because I don't know how to "wing it" with them. But the older my kids get, the more I see that the academic skills cross into the bigger picture. Which is what I had hoped would happen.

 

For me, some of both.

 

there are kids for whom requiring particular types of performance or "output" quenches that spark of intellectual curiosity or even joy.

 

This makes sense to me. If I required my ds to give certain types of "output," we'd be done. Lapbooks and posters come to mind, as I've seen these assigned to public school kids.

[prairiegirl]

Can I ask some nitty-gritty questions? I am so past debating whether an 'out of the box' education is viable or the right thing to do. I now want to know how to do this. I look at the lists that Jackie has on Amazon and I am in awe as to how she found all of these neat books. When I do a search on Amazon, I do not come up with all of these offerings.

 

So my question is: how do you find all of the resources to meet your children's interests? Do you just Google?

 

I have a newly--turned 10 yr. old boy who is obsessed with sports. He pours over the players stats and knows all of the scores of all of the professional and non-professional teams of any sport. Yet his eyes glaze over when we do history and science. He could care less about doing any kind of writing or reading. He goes through the motions because he is a good kid but I am afraid that as he gets older he won't be as accomodating. He has mild dyslexia as well as apraxia. I desperately want to reach him but I don't know how to go about it.

 

What can I do to find resources to give him the kind of education that will reach him? I don't think I am wording this right but I hope someone can help give me ideas on which path to take.

[johnandtinagilbert]

As I'm reading through these posts, I keep wondering what various ones of you mean when you talk about not crushing a love of learning, or not directing your kids in their learning. Are you talking about topics and hobby-type things ...or more along the lines of academic skills ...? Or some of both?

Actually, after continuing through this thread, Colleen, my definition of "love of learning" and not squashing it is very much judged on the attitude and response of my dc. Although it's tough to define with teenagers (and we all know how they can be), there is a difference between lazy and dread. I find that they dread materials that are less effective b/c as they get older, if they don't see the point, they rebel.

 

Here's an example. We used to use Rod and Staff. DD, she loved it. She's a box filler and the format worked beautifully for her orderly, plug in the box, mind. She enjoys practice and repetition, as all the practice validates the Rule of Law ;) My ds, however, Hated RS. We're using The Latin Road now and although ds occasionally grumbles about the copywork involved (just being lazy), he smiles when we practice orally b/c he's learning (and totally realizes it) and accepts the method is effective. For him, the practice in RS brought dread and didn't suit his style b/c he did not need the repetition; yet the copywork and variety of exercises in LR suits him. RS squashed his love of learning. LR gives him what he needs to learn and because he has something tangible (his acquiring of Latin), he's content. He sees the reason behind the method. The method makes sense to him. (5LittleMonkeys) DD still finds her "law" in LR, so she's content there, too and actually finds it a little less boring. RS works...it's just not best in our house. I in no way concede the importance (to me) of formal grammar, I just found something else to incorporate it. Since we're learning about English Grammar from another Language, it is a little "out of the box" even while it is confined to a particular curriculum.

 

... I do heavily rely on principles in WTM, and SWB's recent writing lectures. Otherwise, I would have been completely lost - my kids would be having a great time doing whatever they wanted all day long, but I would have that nagging feeling that we were missing some important things. That nagging feeling (that I did actually have before I read WTM for the second time when ds was 6) would have been the result of my own lack of learning in school, and feeling like a stupid failure by the time I graduated, after all those years of being the "smart girl". I Completely relate to being the smart girl who really needed to learn so much more. That is me to a T. We probably like WTM for the same reasons --- it's presentation makes perfect sense to me. It lays out the kind of rich foundation I find necessary so my kiddos can tackle anything in their futures. I know there are other ways to reach this same goal, but the WTM is one I understand, so I use it as my springboard.

 

I have been blessed with the fruition of the WTM. I believe it has guided me to teach my children how to learn. I see this in the manifestation of my son, who has completely self taught guitar and is playing regularly in church. He took notes, did some copywork, translations, and with hard work he has found joy and is blossoming in a God given gift. The entire process has encouraged me to encourage their interests by providing what they ask for in their hobbies, with the only requirement being effort. So I can understand what Karen Anne means when she says there is a sort of combination between how they learn, what you teach, and allowing room to grow. I am beginning to see that how learn their hobbies IS how they can also learn in school. Simple time and experience in teaching are giving me the confidence to carry that out. I was not aware enough to do it from the beginning...poor first born lot! The Little League will Surely get the best of me!

 

...Others out there are *great* at incorporating grammar/mechanics into their writing, without a separate grammar study - I haven't a clue how to do that, nor do I have experience. You'll find that once you learn it with the first one, you'll be able to get the "vision" to incorporate. It will come! I think my tutoring of a high schooler a few years made a difference in my abilities to guide in this way. I also chose programs that teach me, too. I don't know how to be a teacher formally. I know some say, "You taught them how to tie their shoes...etc." and I get the sincerity in those sweet thoughts, but I do not know how to be a "school" teacher all the time and I distinguish the two even though I may combine them at the same time. Like I said, the Little League gets the best of me!

 

 

I know my posts sound more like "What Colleen wants for her kids" rather than "What Colleen's kids want", but for this time, I think that is OK for them. They do get lots of what they want, in the course of our family/learning life together. I am just making sure that they have certain skills that I feel will be important for the rest of their lives (I include life skills like cooking/baking in that, too). I'm also thinking that the learning of some of these skills is going to start tapering off during high school, so there will be even more room for pursuing their own topics of interest, because they will have gotten started in learning how to learn efficiently.

/QUOTE] I'm finding that the high school and middle years are teaching my kids that my goals are good ones and that what I am pushing them towards is Only For Their Benefit. They are seeing it more and more and I think it makes it easier for all of us. My school is most certainly What Tina Wants, but I have begun to get what I want with materials they prefer. It's a happy balance and we all appreciate the dynamics. I'm learning to appreciate the journey, too; although I confess, the teen years are tough. I do tell them what MommyFaithe said...the real world won't give a sh*t, so let's figure out how to function in the real world and enjoy life...always reminding them they can enjoy their jobs, but their jobs don't have to define Who they are.

 

Colleen, I haven't participated in this thread at all b/c I am very much in line with your thinking here. I don't use pre-packaged curricula for the most part; I let my kids interests guide them in science through middle school; I don't follow a 4 yr history cycle, but wander through history based on interests and desires for any given yr.

 

All that said......I do have complete control over what they learn and what they do daily. I am not "out of the box." I am in a box. It is just one great big box that holds all the basic/essential skills I want to have them master by the time they graduate. What order the master the skills, how they achieve them, etc, it varies from kid to kid, grade to grade, activity to activity, but there is really only 1 box for all of the kids.

I have too firm a grip to allow the freedom you provide. I'm too paralyzed by the fear of not being ready for the real world. I am working on it, though. We've come a long way these past 2 years!

 

I think this is where I'm at, too.

 

I just had a new thought - I wonder, because this thread is posted on the logic stage board, if some of the anxiety expressed on this thread, is somewhat a result of where our 10-14 year olds are, development-wise? I mean, I've got an almost 13 year old, who is (and has been since birth) like many others described here - strong-willed, thinks for himself, not afraid to speak up and question, loves to dream up his own projects (I couldn't understand most of his new physics/Star Trek theory he just explained to me, that he was going to make a diagram of, an hour ago - I just know that someday I'm going to have to help him find another mathematician/physicist/Trekkie for him to bounce his ideas of). Yet I chalk most of this more-intense-right-now "pushback" up to his age and stage of development. He's tired all the time, he's hungry, he's growing, he gets bored easily. He gets impatient with some of my explanations (so I back off and pick my battles). On the other side, he's perfectly delightful and interesting and fun and funny. And sure, I learn a lot from relating to him and watching him - I'm also learning how to parent an adolescent. But I still feel, that as the almost 43 year old adult with proportionally more life experience, that I need to lead him and give him some basics that I think he will need in life. He definitely sees things I don't see, he definitely learns things a lot faster than I do - but I see backwards, over our 30 year difference in age and experience.

 

I realize everyone will see this differently, and I guess that's why we each have our own particular boxes we are trying to get out of. :D

Amen. I definitely think this age gives us some real world perspective about balance, control, relationships and a reality check on what works and doesn't.

 

I return then to we have to find our own ways. I know some of us are waaaaay out of the box and thriving; others out of their own box and thriving too. That is the point of home schooling, isn't it? While we have different paths, there is nothing new under the sun, so if we replicate each other here or there, that's okay, so long as we're still individualizing education, creating stronger family relationships, and providing a safe place for trial and error -- for parents and children.

[rafiki]

.

[johnandtinagilbert]

Can I ask some nitty-gritty questions? I am so past debating whether an 'out of the box' education is viable or the right thing to do. I now want to know how to do this. I look at the lists that Jackie has on Amazon and I am in awe as to how she found all of these neat books. When I do a search on Amazon, I do not come up with all of these offerings.

 

So my question is: how do you find all of the resources to meet your children's interests? Do you just Google? I come here ;) and talk to a great librarian.

 

I have a newly--turned 10 yr. old boy who is obsessed with sports. He pours over the players stats and knows all of the scores of all of the professional and non-professional teams of any sport. Yet his eyes glaze over when we do history and science. He could care less about doing any kind of writing or reading. He goes through the motions because he is a good kid but I am afraid that as he gets older he won't be as accomodating. He has mild dyslexia as well as apraxia. I desperately want to reach him but I don't know how to go about it.

 

What can I do to find resources to give him the kind of education that will reach him? I don't think I am wording this right but I hope someone can help give me ideas on which path to take.

I'd go unit study approach with this one and make a few deals.

 

Teach writing skills from biographies on baseball players. Outlines, notetaking, key word recognitions, remodeling, descriptive adjectives, etc. can be taught from this sort of source.

 

There are resources for word problems from baseball. Hands of Child (I think) or Amanda Bennet,maybe. I'd google it.

 

Physics does well with baseball. Search the Physics of baseball and see what you find.

 

Do American History w/ biographical focus on ball players through the ages. Asian history can be very baseball oriented too, modern history anyways.

 

These are places to start. They key is being proficient in teaching each of these things. Springboards like WTM can help some people. I have learned a ton about literature from TOG and grown by leaps and bounds as a Language Arts teacher from the Phonics Road. For me, once I have the skills, I grow more and more confident implementing them across the board.

 

A dear friend was very much in your shoes. 10 yo boy, mild LD and rocked out a baseball unit study. I just called her and left a message. She'll email me the info, then I'll post for you.

[Corraleno]

Can I ask some nitty-gritty questions? I am so past debating whether an 'out of the box' education is viable or the right thing to do. I now want to know how to do this. I look at the lists that Jackie has on Amazon and I am in awe as to how she found all of these neat books. When I do a search on Amazon, I do not come up with all of these offerings.

 

So my question is: how do you find all of the resources to meet your children's interests? Do you just Google?

 

I have a newly--turned 10 yr. old boy who is obsessed with sports. He pours over the players stats and knows all of the scores of all of the professional and non-professional teams of any sport. Yet his eyes glaze over when we do history and science. He could care less about doing any kind of writing or reading. He goes through the motions because he is a good kid but I am afraid that as he gets older he won't be as accomodating. He has mild dyslexia as well as apraxia. I desperately want to reach him but I don't know how to go about it.

 

What can I do to find resources to give him the kind of education that will reach him? I don't think I am wording this right but I hope someone can help give me ideas on which path to take.

I find most of those resources on Amazon; the key is to follow the bunny trails. When you do a search (e.g. "sports history") and you click on a book, you'll see additional recommendations in "Frequently Bought Together" and "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought..." In the "Also Bought" section you need to keep clicking the little arrow on the right, because there are usually far more than just the 6 books you see on the first page. Any book you see that looks vaguely interesting, click "Add to Wishlist," then when you've seen all the "Also Bought" books, click Back to return to your original search. Lather/Rinse/Repeat.

 

I just made you wishlist called Sports Science & History. I found all of these resources in under 10 minutes, with two searches: sports history & sports science. I haven't looked at any of them in terms of reviews, age appropriateness, or anything like that — I do that after I make the wishlist, and throw out anything that doesn't seem appropriate. But it looks like there are quite a few resources in there that would be appropriate for a 10 yo, especially in the science of sports. And there are some great books in there for studying American history and culture through sports, for when he's a little older.

 

Jackie

Edited January 21, 2011 by Corraleno

[Capt_Uhura]

Teach writing skills from biographies on baseball players. Outlines, notetaking, key word recognitions, remodeling, descriptive adjectives, etc. can be taught from this sort of source.

 

 

 

I think perhaps Jackie mentioned this...forgive me if I have it wrong but I've been out at dr's appts today and haven't made it very far into this thread...but I thought Jackie mentioned she tried to get her son to write in his passion area and that ruined it for him. So while I think some kids wouldn't mind writing in their passion area, what do you do when writing in the passion area kills the passion?

 

I've kept writing separate from science for that reason until this year. Now w/ the writing, we can't move as fast so it's bogging us down and when we're not moving fast, that is when DS starts complaining about being bored.

 

Or is it that you require some writing but the output is up to them? So rather than require a report, they can do it as writing a letter about the show to a grandparent or friend?

Edited January 21, 2011 by Capt_Uhura

[PeterPan]

Colleen wrote:

 

I think this is the part I have trouble with because it is hard to explain. This child's brain shuts down if she is force fed information or if she is required to regurgitate information in a way that doesn't make sense to her or feels forced. I hesitate to even try to explain it because some will think that by allowing this child to learn in a completely untraditional way I am spoiling her or allowing her to dictate to me. If this were one of my other dc I would say that assessment would be correct, but this child's brain doesn't function the same way most people's brains function. I didn't push the ADD issue with her because it was causing her a lot of anxiety to the point of hyperventilating (and again I hesitate to mention this because of the images of a spoiled or petulant child it may conjure up...this isn't the case although I sometimes think that would be easier to deal with). But I still believe she may have an ADD inattentive issue or some form of LD or disorder...

 

I don't think "getting out of the box" solves the LD. The box is a standard you bump up against. I don't think it's reasonable to conclude doing things outside the box is *equivalent* to doing things traditionally, which seems to be the sort of general implication (in homeschooling dialogue in general, not speaking of anyone here), and certainly that's not the case, as MSNative is finding. I think the trouble is we have different types of children being discussed. Some children need to learn outside the box because they are so stinkin' gifted. Some children have LD's and aren't learning in the box. Does that mean you take them out of the box, or does that mean you try to identify and improve the problem? I say both.

 

To 5Monkeys, I think you have a problem. One of the big issues right now in medical terminology is whether we should say children *are* or *have* a problem. It's semantics, but it's not. I would never hand my child an ADD label as a crushing blow. I know you didn't mean it that way (and it sounds like you're pretty frustrated, btdt!), but it certainly had that result. There are actually quite a few problems that look and smell like ADD but might give her a slightly different diagnosis, not ADD. So until you've had a thorough neuropsych evaluation, I wouldn't do that to her. It might not even be right.

 

I don't know where this is going. See to me, I'm on the train that diverged to France when I thought I was headed to Austria. I have no need to get lost in worries over content and making my kid enjoy things when I haven't leaped the basic hurdles of functionality. I think often on a post Regena made some time ago that she realized after the fact that with her older ds she had spent junior high working on content instead of skills. I also spent last night reading an article (from one of the MP publications) by Hirsch on the romanticism and its impact on educational philosophy. To put the two thoughts together is still my work in progress.

 

Some children are naturally strong enough in certain areas that you can teach them WAY outside the box and have it not matter. They catch up quickly and easily when you show them the thing they missed. But some kids are not like that. And I think some kids, when we constantly remove the comparison of the box, lose the chance to bump against it and identify their own weaknesses or problems. This is not a good thing. But this variation in students is why you're going to have some homeschoolers who do an hour a day and read the rest (didn't someone just talk about a family like that?) and be fine and others where the mom KICKS herself for allowing that.

 

Third caveat, and then I close. I think sometimes kids just need to be out of the box. Karen's dd is there. Some kids are never going to fit in the box, are not of the box, etc. But I would be very cautious about that. To get to that point too early you might be blowing off warning signs of things that need to be worked on. Once you've climbed that hurdle and know what you have, then by all means modify and go out of the box. I certainly plan to. I'm just not kicking all the boxes till I know *why*.

[Carol in Cal.]

I think perhaps Jackie mentioned this...forgive me if I have it wrong but I've been out at dr's appts today and haven't made it very far into this thread...but I thought Jackie mentioned she tried to get her son to write in his passion area and that ruined it for him. So while I think some kids wouldn't mind writing in their passion area, what do you do when writing in the passion area kills the passion?

 

 

My DD is like this. I separated them.

 

She had to write, she had to do copywork, she had to learn history, and those didn't have to be related, but they could be. If I gave her a writing assignment, for instance, sometimes I would say, you can read and summarize your history or your literature or your science. Whatever you pick, you must write at least 7 sentences of at least 6 words each, and they must not all sound the same. We will correct this and then use it for copywork.

 

I found proofreading for her to do that didn't involve checking her own work. I assigned copywork that was not related to her history, which she loved. I wrote down summaries that she dictated, and didn't necessarily make her copy them (or she would dictate really short ones). I regretted the history binder that we did not produce, but she learned all the material in both history and language arts, which probably would not have been the case had I used the integrated approach that made so much sense to me.

 

I gradually worked her into doing her skills work in her content areas, mostly by making it one choice among several. As she became more comfortable with writing, she was far more interested in writing about history, for example.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Carol in Cal.

[Corraleno]

I don't think "getting out of the box" solves the LD.

No, but it often solves the problem of educating the person with the LD. There is no "solution" to the fact that my DS is a visual/spatial learner, or a whole-to-parts thinker, or that he has slow processing speed and poor working memory for verbal information. It's the way he thinks — and it's only an LD in the sense that it prevents him from learning in the standard way that public schools teach. There are two ways you can look at that: the standard school model is the "right" form of education and my kid is defective if he doesn't learn that way, or my kid is fine and the standard model is defective because it can't teach my kid.

 

I don't consider being a visual/spatial, whole-to-part thinker a "defect." If the American school system had been designed by artists and engineers, you'd have a totally different group of kids at the head of the class, and a lot of verbal/sequential kids sitting in Special Ed. DS has trouble concentrating on things he finds tedious and pointless — but give him something he's interested in and the concentration is amazing. So, does he have "attention deficit disorder" or does he have "low-tolerance-for-boredom disorder"? And is low tolerance for boredom really a disorder?

 

Some kids have issues that respond to therapy, like a convergence problem that would respond to vision therapy, or a reading & spelling problem that can be improved with an O/G program. But IMHO a lot of things that get labeled as "disabilities" are really perfectly normal and natural ways of thinking that just don't match the one-size-fits-all institutional education model.

 

I hesitate to even try to explain it because some will think that by allowing this child to learn in a completely untraditional way I am spoiling her or allowing her to dictate to me.

PLEASE don't ever let anyone convince you of that. Giving a child what they need isn't spoiling, it's good parenting. If a child needs glasses or a hearing aid in order to learn, no one would consider that indulgent or spoiling, and giving a whole-to-parts learner what they need to learn is no different. The goal is to learn, not to smash a square peg into a round hole just because our PS system is set up to only educate round pegs.

 

Jackie

[Capt_Uhura]

Thanks Carol for answering my question. I hadn't been having DS write in history or science as to not ruin those topics for him. This year, with more writing in those subjects, he has deemed them boring....his word for anything he doesn't like. WE've been doing Writing With Skill and he's in WWE4, I explained to him that ideally, he would be doing this writing in the context of his history and science. First, it helps to reinforce what he's learning and second, you're making a notebook that you can look back on and read about what you've learned. Whereas, he'll never look back at his WWE notebooks or WWS binder to just read through it. But with a nice history notebook, he could go back and read his timeline, he could read the section on scientific discoveries etc. I think he's starting to agree with me but it's been a process.

 

I like your suggestion of giving them a choice between content areas.

[johnandtinagilbert]

I think perhaps Jackie mentioned this...forgive me if I have it wrong but I've been out at dr's appts today and haven't made it very far into this thread...but I thought Jackie mentioned she tried to get her son to write in his passion area and that ruined it for him. So while I think some kids wouldn't mind writing in their passion area, what do you do when writing in the passion area kills the passion?

 

I've kept writing separate from science for that reason until this year. Now w/ the writing, we can't move as fast so it's bogging us down and when we're not moving fast, that is when DS starts complaining about being bored.

 

Or is it that you require some writing but the output is up to them? So rather than require a report, they can do it as writing a letter about the show to a grandparent or friend?

I do require specific output, but I tend to keep the requirements into a pleasurable level by allowing them to choose which topic to incorporate writing. For example, I need to see an outline and 2 pages of notetaking in history, which will be translated into a summary or mini-report. They can choose between several books made available to them. I tend to pick books I know they will be interested in, so my dc actually enjoy the writing part b/c they are going to share about something for which they have passion. We always present our writing to our entire family. It becomes a time of sharing....the whole point of writing is communication and sharing.

 

If a child cannot combine the two, I have no problem disassociating. In this case, I just have to get creative to the best degree possible, then also lay down the law at times. There are some things they just don't find pleasure in and sometimes I cough that up to, "that's life."

Mine DD is like this. I separated them.

 

She had to write, she had to do copywork, she had to learn history, and those didn't have to be related, but they could be. If I gave her a writing assignment, for instance, sometimes I would say, you can read and summarize your history or your literature or your science. Whatever you pick, you must write at least 7 sentences of at least 6 words each, and they must not all sound the same. We will correct this and then use it for copywork.

 

I found proofreading for her to do that didn't involve checking her own work. I assigned copywork that was not related to her history, which she loved. I wrote down summaries that she dictated, and didn't necessarily make her copy them (or she would dictate really short ones). I regretted the history binder that we did not produce, but she learned all the material in both history and language arts, which probably would not have been the case had I used the integrated approach that made so much sense to me.

 

I gradually worked her into doing her skills work in her content areas, mostly by making it one choice among several. As she became more comfortable with writing, she was far more interested in writing about history, for example.

This has worked well in our home, too.

[Capt_Uhura]

 

I don't consider being a visual/spatial, whole-to-part thinker a "defect." If the American school system had been designed by artists and engineers, you'd have a totally different group of kids at the head of the class, and a lot of verbal/sequential kids sitting in Special Ed. DS has trouble concentrating on things he finds tedious and pointless — but give him something he's interested in and the concentration is amazing. So, does he have "attention deficit disorder" or does he have "low-tolerance-for-boredom disorder"? And is low tolerance for boredom really a disorder?

Jackie

 

:lol: And Special Ed would be filled with girls instead of boys! Put my son in the "low-tolerance-for-boredom disorder" classroom. If I dare put this in print, if I knew then what I now know about my oldest and how he learns best and what he needs, he would be an only child. I would HS him quite differently if he were an only compared to now w/ a 7yr old (very active, loud, typical boy) and a 4yr old girl (loud, demanding). It's trying to find that balance that I'm finding near impossible this year.

[prairiegirl]

Tina, thank you so much for the ideas. I just needed someone to get me started. Your ideas have given me some rabbit trails that I can persue.

 

Jackie! Thank you so much for the list. You have helped me even more for giving me the search words of 'sports history' and 'sports science' This is where I sheepishly admit that it never ocurred to me to put the words 'history' and 'science' with sports in my search. I know, silly woman. Thank you!

[johnandtinagilbert]

5LittleMonkeys, I keep wondering if 2 things aren't unfortunately converging for you. Is there ADD or the likes thereof? You don't really know. Here's what you do know: you've got to find a new way of reaching your dd academically. That doesn't mean LD.

 

We talked about her playing the emotional control card before and you got the confession of such out of her, now make the changes and see what happens. She is trying to take control...but maybe in the right place - her learning. Perhaps she just didn't know how to tell you that until this week. I think the latter title of this thread is better for your thoughts, "Now what?" The answer, now you change your methods and design a new box, a crafty one, for your dd. THEN, I'd look at LDs a little more closely. Who knows what you'll find.

 

I still think this thread is great b/c it continues to encourage us all to meet our children where they are...in "the" box...in their own box....in the Federation...on the field....the possibilities are numerous.

[Guest]

No, but it often solves the problem of educating the person with the LD. There is no "solution" to the fact that my DS is a visual/spatial learner, or a whole-to-parts thinker, or that he has slow processing speed and poor working memory for verbal information. It's the way he thinks — and it's only an LD in the sense that it prevents him from learning in the standard way that public schools teach. There are two ways you can look at that: the standard school model is the "right" form of education and my kid is defective if he doesn't learn that way, or my kid is fine and the standard model is defective because it can't teach my kid.

 

I don't consider being a visual/spatial, whole-to-part thinker a "defect." If the American school system had been designed by artists and engineers, you'd have a totally different group of kids at the head of the class, and a lot of verbal/sequential kids sitting in Special Ed. DS has trouble concentrating on things he finds tedious and pointless — but give him something he's interested in and the concentration is amazing. So, does he have "attention deficit disorder" or does he have "low-tolerance-for-boredom disorder"? And is low tolerance for boredom really a disorder?

 

Some kids have issues that respond to therapy, like a convergence problem that would respond to vision therapy, or a reading & spelling problem that can be improved with an O/G program. But IMHO a lot of things that get labeled as "disabilities" are really perfectly normal and natural ways of thinking that just don't match the one-size-fits-all institutional education model.

 

 

 

 

This is exactly what I've been trying to articulate. The education system rewards kids who think and process information in a certain way, and forces kids who do not to struggle, space out or check out or drop out, or fail. The educational world in general functions under the bizarre assumption that one and only one way of thinking is "standard" and everything else is problematic or LD. There has been some research leading to the conclusion that most teachers -- most, not all -- are female, highly verbal, parts-to-whole, incremental thinkers. That is not in and of itself a problem. But when, as I have noted, educational philosophies are consequences are developed under the belief that everyone things and processes this way and that those who do not have LDs or are failing, THAT is a problem. The people who go into education, develop pedagogies, work in the classroom, are not a cross-section of the variety of types of minds that exist in the larger world. Again, this is only a problem when they assume that everyone else learns, or should learn, in this way.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Guest

[Guest]

Did anyone else hear Terri Gross interviewing the head of Beatitudes, an alternative care facility for Alzheimer's patients in Arizona (I think), this morning? I immediately thought of the connections between the way this facility approaches its patients and the ways we are talking about recognizing how our kids function.

 

At Beatitudes they have a far lower rate than the norm of high-dosage medications with problematic side effects, of behavioral meltdowns. What do they do instead? They focus on the comfort level of the patients and on meeting them where they are. Their patients may get chocolate, or even alcohol, or dolls to hold, or animals to cuddle. Kids come in to chat and perform skits. There is no one-fits-all, ruling "schedule." Some of the patients have mixed up circadian circuits, so they are awake at night. The facility accommodates this; some patients take their baths at 2 in the morning. Some eat during the night and not in the daytime.

 

The director went on to say that scientific studies have shown that tacile, pleasure-producing activities may be forgotten by the patients two hours later; but the neurological EFFECTS of those activities, the chemicals released by the brain as a result, are still in their systems two hours later and affect their capacity for tolerating frustrations or transitions.

 

I had ALL KINDS of mini light bulbs going off in my brain as I listened to this, and I wondered whether anyone else had heard it.

[Corraleno]

I thought Jackie mentioned she tried to get her son to write in his passion area and that ruined it for him. So while I think some kids wouldn't mind writing in their passion area, what do you do when writing in the passion area kills the passion?

I'll tell you what I'm doing this year, and why, and what my current (and continually evolving) plan for the future is, and then I'll explain a little about DS's past experiences with language arts.

 

This year: DS is 12 and he's just hit puberty. He thinks in pictures and has always struggled to translate pictures into words, and he particularly struggles to translate what is essentially a web of images into something that is linear and verbal. Now most people would probably say that the solution to this is extra drill and practice, since it's his weakest skill. But he's had all kinds of drill and practice in the past (see Past History, below) and (1) it did not improve his writing at all and (2) it turned him from a reluctant reader into a nonreader. I've decided to drop writing for this year, except for handwriting, which also serves as copy work, memory work, grammar instruction, and poetic/literary devices instruction. (I can explain that in detail if anyone is interested). An inherently disorganized, nonverbal brain flooded with pubescent hormones = pretty much totally nonreceptive to writing instruction. OTOH, he's absorbing content information like an air plant, so we'll just concentrate on content now and come back to writing later.

 

Future Plans: Language arts is the one area I've had to look hardest at, in terms of what is really necessary versus what is "usually" done. My goals are that my kids remain avid readers, and that they can speak and write in an effective and educated way. For DS, there are 2 things he needs to be able to write, for college and the "real world": research reports and lab reports. The only context in which he'll ever have to write a literary essay is in one semester of college comp, which he'll take at the CC in 10th or 11th grade, and we'll cross that pedagogical bridge when we get to it. I do want him to be able to write a college-level research paper, including a well-defined and well-defended thesis, by 10th or 11th grade. Instead of relying on 9 or 10 years of narration, dictation, copy work, books reports, weekly essays, etc., to get him there, I plan to just teach him how to write a college-level research paper, when he's ready.

 

Next year, in 7th grade, if I feel he's ready, I may have him write one or two short research papers, where I walk him through every single step of researching the topic, selecting a thesis, organizing the information, writing each paragraph, correcting the grammar, improving the language (sentence variety, vocabulary, etc.). Writing with training wheels and me running along side him. Then in 8th, two more papers, loosening the training wheels. My plan is for him to carry out original scientific research in paleontology in 11th & 12th grade, and his only writing assignment in 12th will be to write up his research and submit it to a journal. That's my ultimate goal for HS. I don't care if he can diagram a sentence or label all the iambs and trochees in a poem or write a literary essay, because those skills are not relevant to him. If he can write a first-rate, publishable research paper, then I'll feel like we met our goals.

 

Past History: I doubt many people will get this far, but I wanted to add that DS did narration and dictation in school and it was a disaster. He was in a public charter for what was supposed to be 4th but ended up being a repeat of 3rd, and they did daily narration and dictation. The dictation did absolutely nothing for DS's spelling or grammar; he ended the year exactly where he started. And after a year of narration, he ended the year behind where he started. All of the books were assigned, no free choice reading, and a paragraph of narration was required for every 2-3 pages of reading. He had to practice dictation and do written narration every. single. day. In addition to drilling math facts, because the teacher wouldn't let him start division until he'd perfectly memorized his math facts.

 

After year of crying for hours every night while I forced him to do his homework, my son's spelling was still horrible, he still didn't know his math facts by heart, and he totally stopped reading. In fact, he lost interest in pretty much everything. He assumed that the rest of his life would consist of horribly tedious, mind-numbing work that would be difficult for him because he was stupid.

 

I can't even begin to put into words how much that broke my heart. I just don't ever ever EVER want to see him in that place again. Keeping the fire and the spark and the curiosity alive in him isn't just a nice bonus for me, it's the goal behind everything we do. I would rather he were happy and healthy and doing something he loved, than crush his spirit in order to make him fit into someone else's box. If he told me that what he really wanted to do was fix cars for a living, I would be fine with that. My father was a commercial fisherman for most of his life, and he's one of the most well-read people I've ever known. He has a huge library and still reads 2-3 books a week, he draws and paints all the time, and he constantly sends DS newspaper clippings with science stories. That's what I want for my kids — to be 70 years old and still fascinated by the world.

 

Jackie

[Guest]

My goals are similar to yours, Jackie, barring the publishable research part. Dd is an intuitive and fluid writer, and I don't think she will take six years to get the idea of a research paper. My idea is to wait until tenth grade or even eleventh, and wait for a topic that seizes her interest to seem like a prime topic for developing in that direction. I don't know how to explain it, but with dd, I'll simply know when it happens. If I get her interest and her drive behind it, she'll learn in one or two takes what might otherwise take YEARS of repeated drilling in summaries, developing a thesis, supporting an argument, developing a bibliography, etc.

 

One way I might approach this is through sitting in on classes at our local university. Dd learns supremely well through lectures (if she's interested in the topic or if the lecturer can present it in an interesting way), so my plan is to choose one course to audit with her. If it's one that excites her interest, we'll do the essay assignments on our own at home.

 

One problem with teaching "the writing process" as it's usually practiced, when applied to kids like dd, is that in this scenario writing takes place continually on topics in which she is not invested or engaged. I had a continual problem with the revision process in freshmen writing classes I used to teach when the kids were asked to revise, more than once, papers whose topics they did not choose and about which they couldn't possibly have cared less -- these topics were generally more literary in nature (the textbook writer was a lit PhD) and only a handful of students were lit majors.

 

Some students might actually learn how to revise BEST when they are uninvested and can focus just on the editing process and not be invested in the outcome of the argument or further explorations of content. Some learn best through repeated practice of the same basic process. But for dd, the engagement part cannot be left out, or no real learning will take place.

[swimmermom3]

I have gone the other direction over the years. I am thinking more inside the box than outside the box as time goes on. Although I may be trying to escape again!

 

My education was perfect for me. I had a boring school life that wasn't rigorous or creative or anything really. But for me it was great. I read books constantly. I'd start reading on the bus on the way to school, so I'd have plenty to think about all day. I'd read whenever I could during school, but that wasn't usually allowed, so I'd think about the books I was reading. I often read the same book several times.

 

I had great English teachers in 11th and 12th grades. But I noticed that I really enjoyed and got so much more out of the books I had already read multiple times than the one I read for the first time in class. My brain seems to be more of a womb than a computer. If I give it lots of nutrients and plenty of time to gestate, wonderful things are born. If I enter data and hit print, I just get error messages.

 

And that's what I'm hearing on this thread. That people who work outside the box let their children fill their brains with horses, sea cucumbers, art, multiplication, or Star Trek. And then there's plenty of thought, plenty of output, just maybe not in the form a box checker would expect.

 

But there's always the fear inside of me, that I and my children will not measure up to the box checkers. And we live in a world of box checkers. So I worry. And I check boxes. And then I notice the error messages and sigh.

 

So for me the question isn't so much how do you do it, but how do you find the courage to do it? Especially if you have children who don't push you to stop checking the boxes?

 

Julie D.

 

Julie, I thought about your post today while we were doing science. We had finished our experiment and my son was answering the questions in the wrap-up. The first question asked him to describe what he saw with regards to the food coloring in the cold water. The second question dealt with describing what he saw with regards to the behavior of food coloring in hot water. I told ds "Pay attention to the questions." He promptly drew two molecular models for hot and cold complete with movement lines - under the first question. Nope. Not good enough. You didn't see molecular models; you saw food color in water. Blank look. I drew what I saw. He copied me and then promptly checked out of what had previously been an engaging lesson. I did a great job of teaching him one of those box-checking skills: compliance.:tongue_smilie:

 

I am a box checker with an ever-growing rebellious streak. I have the courage to ditch what isn't working but then I panic myself right back into box-checking. Although, you know, I think it isn't always courage that is needed, but confidence. Either the way, both are hard to find sometimes.

Edited January 22, 2011 by swimmermom3

[Mommyfaithe]

Julie, I thought about your post today while we were doing science. We had finished our experiment and my son was answering the questions in the wrap-up. The first question asked him to describe what he saw with regards to the food coloring in the cold water. The second question dealt with describing what he saw with regards to the behavior of food coloring in hot water. I told ds "Pay attention to the questions." He promptly drew two molecular models for hot and cold complete with movement lines - under the first question. Nope. Not good enough. You didn't see molecular models; you saw food color in water. Blank look. I drew what I saw. He copied me and then promptly checked out of what had previously been an engaging lesson. I did a great job of teaching him one of those box-checking skills: compliance.:tongue_smilie:

 

I am a box checker with an ever-growing rebellious streak. I have the courage to ditch what isn't working but then I panic myself right back into box-checking. Although, you know, I think it isn't always courage that is needed, but confidence. Either the way, both are to find sometimes.

 

You know, it is ok to be a box checker who goes outside the box...LOL.

If you like lists and boxes, make lists and boxes. I like lists and boxes and my kids did not have what I would call traditional schooling.

My kids also like lists and boxes....it gives us a sense of security...

You can box check outside the box. Gives you a whole different perspective.

 

Faithe

[justamouse]

Did anyone else hear Terri Gross interviewing the head of Beatitudes, an alternative care facility for Alzheimer's patients in Arizona (I think), this morning? I immediately thought of the connections between the way this facility approaches its patients and the ways we are talking about recognizing how our kids function.

 

At Beatitudes they have a far lower rate than the norm of high-dosage medications with problematic side effects, of behavioral meltdowns. What do they do instead? They focus on the comfort level of the patients and on meeting them where they are. Their patients may get chocolate, or even alcohol, or dolls to hold, or animals to cuddle. Kids come in to chat and perform skits. There is no one-fits-all, ruling "schedule." Some of the patients have mixed up circadian circuits, so they are awake at night. The facility accommodates this; some patients take their baths at 2 in the morning. Some eat during the night and not in the daytime.

 

The director went on to say that scientific studies have shown that tacile, pleasure-producing activities may be forgotten by the patients two hours later; but the neurological EFFECTS of those activities, the chemicals released by the brain as a result, are still in their systems two hours later and affect their capacity for tolerating frustrations or transitions.

 

I had ALL KINDS of mini light bulbs going off in my brain as I listened to this, and I wondered whether anyone else had heard it.

 

I read the article since we are living through a very hard time with my FIL with Alz, but I never thought to put it to children-my brain wasn't focused on them while I read-it was focused on FIL.

 

Your observation is extremely enlightening.

[Corraleno]

If I get her interest and her drive behind it, she'll learn in one or two takes what might otherwise take YEARS of repeated drilling in summaries, developing a thesis, supporting an argument, developing a bibliography, etc.

I'm seeing this sort of thing more and more, even with DD, who's pretty neurotypical. For example, when I first tried to teach her to tell time last year (2nd grade), she just did. not. get. it. We tried worksheets, toy clocks, diagrams, manipulatives, everything. Nada. So I dropped it, skipped the clock pages in MM, and just continued to casually talk about it IRL, e.g., "we need to leave for your violin lesson at 3:15 and it's 2:45 now, so we'll need to leave in half an hour." Earlier this year (3rd grade) I tried to slip in a few MM worksheets, and it just seemed completely random which ones she got right and which ones were wrong. I bought her a Hello Kitty Clock & Money workbook, thinking we'd do a few pages for fun every once in a while; she took it to her room and did the whole thing in one afternoon, most of it wrong. I decided to forget about worksheets and just keep talking about it casually until she seemed ready.

 

Two nights ago, she asked me when dinner would be ready and I said in half an hour. She looked at the digital clock, which said 6:51 and said "So, that would be... 7:21?" :blink: :svengo: Yesterday she said "18 more minutes until 2:00" and when I asked her how she figured that out, she said "It's 1:42, so I added an 8 to the 2 to make 10, then I added another 10 to make the 40 into 60." Later she said "I guess Oma's in bed now, because if it's 4:17 here, it must be 11:17 in England." Then she asked me who decided what time it was where, so I got a globe and a flashlight and showed her how the time of day would change depending on how the earth turned (we'd done this before and she understood what it meant in terms of "night" and "day" but not time zones). Then she asked why were the minutes always the same, but the hour was different, so I got out a time zone map and we talked about how confusing it would be if the time changed by a few minutes for each mile you went east or west, so people had decided on these slightly arbitrary "zones" so that only the hour would change.

 

Now, I could have insisted that she keep doing those worksheets every few weeks for the past 2 years until she learned to read a clock, but would she have understood it any better? By waiting for her to get to a point where she could actually understand the concept of clock time, she not only knows how to read a clock, she understands what clocks measure and why it's divided up that way. And that took about half an hour with a globe and a map, not 2 years of worksheets.

 

I saw a documentary in the UK that compared the UK educational system, which starts formal academics at 4, to the Scandinavian system, which doesn't start formal academics until about 7 (and I think in Norway school is only half a day until 9). By 9 or 10, the Scandinavian kids and the UK kids were in exactly the same place, academically. Those extra years of full-time school provided no academic advantage whatsoever, and there were significant disadvantages in social development, especially for boys.

 

It seems to me that American education focuses far too much drilling skills that kids may not be developmentally ready for, while holding back on advanced content — I think most kids can handle far more advanced content that they're usually allowed access to. If we drill-&-kill the skills, while holding back all the juicy, exciting content, why should we be surprised that so many kids end up disliking school?

 

Jackie

Edited January 22, 2011 by Corraleno

[swimmermom3]

You know, it is ok to be a box checker who goes outside the box...LOL.

If you like lists and boxes, make lists and boxes. I like lists and boxes and my kids did not have what I would call traditional schooling.

My kids also like lists and boxes....it gives us a sense of security...

You can box check outside the box. Gives you a whole different perspective.

 

Faithe

 

:lol:Faithe, you always manage to get a chuckle out of me...and smack me up alongside the head at the same time. How do you do that? Your earlier post was a treasure; however, this one contains some important kernels of insight. For all of Swimmer Dude's negotiations, he likes checklists and Miss Go with the Flow is actually looking forward to her K12 class because she'll know exactly where she is in the course unlike working with her mother who writes high school work a week or two weeks at a time.

 

Both yours and Eight's posts remind me that I can have it all: the structure I need and the freedom to approach school in a way that feels intuitively right for me and the kids. Karen, Jackie, Jenn, and Nan and similar posters keep the ideas fresh. It's just that "having it all" takes a boat load of work.:tongue_smilie: