S/0 dumbed down curriculum

[Surfside Academy]

I've really enjoyed the discussions the past few days. I'm just curious to hear from others though about what criteria they look at when considering if a curriculum is rigorous, middle of the road, dumbed down, etc.

 

Personally, I've always stayed away from the workbook approach where kids are required to find information somewhere in the text and copy it down in a workbook. Some others may disagree so I'm genuinely interested in hearing from others about how they evaluate curriculum. I glean so much from these discussions!

[FaithManor]

My standards kind of have a tendency to vary according to the discipline and the stage of learning. At the high school level, I demand good solutions manuals/instructor's manuals for math and science. I want to be able to quickly look at answers to math and science problems and not search around a poorly laid out manual. I do not want an answer key. So much of math and math based science should be given partial credit. One needs to work through the complex problem and find the spot at which the student made the error and then determine what went wrong. Was it a failure to understand how to achieve the solution, was it a simple arithmetic error, a consistent process error that needs remediating, etc? In chemistry, was the "right" answer achieved but significant units counted incorrectly, was there more than one right answer (also very true of geometric proofs so a solution's manual with all of the possibilities listed is important if one can find it), etc. Even if I like the student text, if the instructor's manual is sub-par, there is a good chance I will reject it.

 

I also look at how the book was compiled, who wrote it, that person's credentials and reputation, sources listed, etc. I prefer, on controversial topics, new theories, etc. as much neutrality as possible from the authors. This is especially true of history.

 

I also know what the strengths and weaknesses of my own education were so I look for something that is at least as strong as the areas I've identified as having been well educated, but also does a good job of filling in the gaps I felt I had in secondary education. I compare quite a bit with my dad's impressions of high school. My dad is an amazing man and so well educated out of high school. He went to a great rural school, tough but nuturing staff, high standards, plethora of electives studied in depth year after year, the works. An "A" really meant something and you had to work to get it. The depth was there and as my dad puts it, "My occasional D, which I most certainly deserved because I preferred to ignore homework and then show up and get a high test grade thus really annoying my teachers, was worth more than today's A!" So, on some level I think he affects my choices as well.

 

Dh and I do a lot of comparing to some of our beloved college textbooks. They are out of print and of course, in many areas there is new information and so these books would not be appropriate, but yet they are great guides for how an excellent text should be constructed. We stick to 100 level choices, by in large, for guidance for high school texts. We school from the first week of August through the second week of June (though this year my children surprised me, churned out the work, and finished the second week of May) so accomplishing a 100 level text in one year is definitely doable.

 

I don't give a thought to whatever tests may be included in the humanities instructor's guides. I make my own since I've found that many tests only concern themselves with a cursory knowledge of a bare minimum of material. We are also big fans of oral exams - oral boards if you will. But, we can't rely on them too much because it's a little bit subjective for transcript, college admittance purposes. So, I do write a fair number of my own exams. I've loved our math and science courses so I have been comfortable using the tests when provided.

 

I do not shy away from a text that my children hate. Though I don't go out of my way to purchase something I know they will not like, I consider it part of their life training to learn to deal with a text that is difficult. I know that is not popular with many homeschoolers and once, for ds for pre-algebra, I did relent and get something else which actually helped him greatly and then he was able to turn around and complete the original text easily. But, as a general rule, since we don't get to choose the technical manuals our employers provide us, the college texts our professors harrangue us with, the IRS regulations we must read and understand....I feel that it is part of their training to wrangle with a difficult text while mom and dad are there to guide them through and help them achieve their sense of accomplishment for sticking it out, so long it does not do any real or lasting damage to their academic achievement or sense of self-wroth. But, occasionally, just occasionally, I'm completely wrong and a text is brutally awful. I admit my mistake and shelve it. One time I did actually burn a curriculum. As I said to dh, "I would consider it a cruel and unChristian act to foist this cr*p off on another homeschooler whether by sale or donation." He grinned while I gleefully tossed it in our fire ring and set it ablaze!

 

I am not a fan of workbooks though I do like the Mindbender series for elementary and middle school students. I did also use workbooks for Michigan History. Yes, I let my standards down. There you have it! Faith, the neo-classical homeschooler, feeling the need to address Michigan history so my children would not be completely ignorant but also having about as much enthusiasm for the subject as a dental patient for a root canal, embraced some hurry up workbooks, let them memorize a bizarre array of Michigan trivia, taught them a little Michigan geography, and called it quits. There, no one can say I did NOT teach Michigan history. Whew!

 

Textbooks are our general jumping off point, but we always add to them as much as possible with 'living" books. So, our kids are issued syllabi that outline the requirements for each course. This will include necessary field trips and documentation, notebooks, lab books, projects, research papers, etc. whatever we think will demonstrate mastery and application of concepts. So, I like a book that is pretty much more of a text than an actual curriculum. It's a lot of work for dh and I, but since we kind of tend to be rather opinionated about what constitutes a good assignment or a bad one, it is actually just easier to make our own assignments than to read through a stack of curriculum assignments and decide what to keep, what to toss, and then what to require in place of what we tossed and how to integrate the author's and ours.

 

Additionally, we really like to add periodicals and journals to the mix so I'm no fan of huge texts that have so much reading that it would be completely overwhelming to my kids to add to it. I read aloud from National Geographic in the evenings, in the car on family trips, etc. and we have some great discussions. Sometimes I assign specific periodical reading and note taking. So, I want the flexibility to incorporate that into the course.

 

Spielvogel, though popular to some, made dd and I want to scream. Wordy, dry, etc. I had to really drag any additional reading from primary sources out of her even though she was a book lover and very enthusiastic about her studies. I know he's popular with many here and that's great! For us, he was one of the few collosal flops amongst my choices and I almost burned his text until I decided that I could, in good conscience, leave it on the shelf as a reference for research projects. SWB's books are more engaging and will be our jumping off spot from now on. However, ds's place in the history cycle is ahead of where SWB is in her books for Norton at the present time, so this year, I've had to improvise and I've been writing course syllabi for a few weeks now.

 

Mostly, I am not certain that my process for choosing texts is anymore clear after this post than MUD!! I've just re-read this and I don't know if it is going to be helpful to anyone. Sorry!!!!!

 

Faith

[Nan in Mass]

You might like to look at this thread:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282565

: )

[regentrude]

I've really enjoyed the discussions the past few days. I'm just curious to hear from others though about what criteria they look at when considering if a curriculum is rigorous, middle of the road, dumbed down, etc.

Personally, I've always stayed away from the workbook approach where kids are required to find information somewhere in the text and copy it down in a workbook. Some others may disagree so I'm genuinely interested in hearing from others about how they evaluate curriculum. I glean so much from these discussions!

 

I am using textbooks for math and science, and for history.

 

First, I look at the amount of content covered - starting with the table of content: are all topics covered that I consider necessary? Any math/science text that does not make the cut I will not investigate further.

Next, I look at the textbook: is there consecutive text that flows logically, is it written with a vocabulary appropriate for an older student, are the illustrations carefully selected to enhance understanding? (Many older texts belong into this class).

Or are vocabulary and sentence structure grossly simplified, the font huge, the text bits short and interrupted by colorful boxes and pictures with no discernible educational value (such as a quarter page picture of a scientist in white coat, holding up a test tube)? I will dismiss books of the second category because there is too little information per page and the treatment does not go deep enough. Most public school high school texts I have seen belong into this category- one glance is usually sufficient to eliminate them.

Also, a quick thumbing through of science textbooks often yields mistakes or gross oversimplifications which would be grounds for dismissal.

 

After evaluating the text itself, I look at the resources for student work: are there good conceptual end-of-chapter questions and enough practice problems? Are they sufficiently different, but enough of each class for mastery? Are solutions available?

 

For literature, I do not use a text but choose the original books myself. I supplement with a few different resources for writing, no full curricula, but individual books.

 

Foreign language materials: a good indicator is the amount of foreign language on the page and on the accompanying CDs/DVDs. Typically, the more English is used in a French book, the less is accomplished.

[mcconnellboys]

I have in mind things I want to accomplish and tend to mix up various materials, as well as one on one instruction, in order to get those things done. For high school, I have been looking at various course outlines that I've found online for different subjects. I already know from my older son's experiences with high school correspondence and private school courses, that many, many of those were/are not very rigorous, don't tend to engender thinking skills regarding a particular subject, and don't result in a whole lot being internalized (really learned, vs. just memorized for a test and forgotten).... My aim is toward real learning....