2E: Balancing Interest-Led vs. Skills

[SophiaH]

I've been reading with interest the recent ongoing conversations about how moms are creatively meeting their 2E kids' educational needs. An overriding question I have in regard to these discussions (with which I find myself nodding constantly) is: How do you balance following a kiddo's interest in content subjects with incrementally increasing their abilities in those important skill subjects?

 

(I guess this question could be posed to all those who use some interest-led studies, but I'm thinking about Jackie in particular who mentioned not starting writing and grammar until much later. This is more the way I am leaning after my experience with dd.)

[rafiki]

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[Corraleno]

We do formal schoolwork (the three R's) in the morning, and interested led (content) subjects in the afternoon.

This is what we do, too. Next year it will be math, Greek, and English in the morning, and history, science, programming, robotics and art in the afternoons/evenings. English next year will consist of LLfLotR (heavily tweaked, mostly done orally), plus spelling, typing, and handwriting. His handwriting is painfully slow, which causes a lot of problems since he can think about 100 times faster than he can write — his brain is always getting way ahead of his pencil, and then he has to stop and concentrate on writing the letters or guessing the spelling, then he loses his train of thought, and it gets very frustrating. I want him to be a reasonably fast typist and decent speller before we get heavily into writing.

 

I do teach him many of the skills necessary for writing in other ways, though. Below is an example of how I use TC courses, which I posted in another thread:

 

Often, when I watch a lecture with DS, I’ll pause the video and point out that the professor just made a really important point, or I might say “Did you notice that in the beginning of the lecture he mentioned several reasons for the downfall of [whatever], and then he covered them one by one, and then he summarized them at the end? Can you list what the key points were? How did he tie them all together in his summary?†If I don’t watch the lecture myself, I might ask him to summarize it for me afterward, or to tell me the three most important points. So he is really learning the same skill as outlining, but it’s in the context of meaningful content, it’s in a format that provides extra visual cues, and it eliminates some of the steps (reading, spelling) that get in the way of learning both the skill and the content.

 

I’ve even used TC lectures to teach the concept of developing and supporting a thesis. Garrett Fagan’s Great Battles of the Ancient World course was brilliant for that, because he would often present several competing theories on a given topic, provide the evidence for and against each theory, and then explain his own position and the evidence for it. We watched the lectures together, and then I’d review the theories with DS afterwards, having him tell me the evidence for and against each one and then explain what he believed and why.

 

So, although DS isn’t doing any formal writing (other than what he chooses to write in his “civilization†book), he’s actually learning all the requisite skills: how to organize, analyze, and process information, how to develop and support a thesis, how to use interesting and varied sentence structure and vocabulary (from all of his reading). When I feel like he’s ready to start writing, I can teach him the 5-paragraph essay format in a day. And I’d actually prefer to wait until all those other skills are in place and he can produce something worth writing, before I teach him a “formula.â€

 

Activities like programming, chess, and strategy games can develop logic skills, and we discuss things constantly — over lunch, over dinner, in the car, while on nature walks, watching documentaries, etc. We might discuss how a specific commercial is trying to manipulate the viewer, or why a politician chose certain words, or whether a history documentary presented a balanced view of the subject. It just makes more sense to me to teach analytical and critical thinking skills in the course of daily life, especially at this age, verses handing kids a Critical Thinking workbook.

 

My DD is totally different from DS, she loves to write — letters, funny stories, even "reports." Last year she wanted to make a little book of reports on Egyptian pharaohs and queens, so I helped her write half a dozen reports (6-8 sentences), which she illustrated. I walked her through the process of thinking of 3-4 important facts about each person, adding a general introductory sentence and a conclusion, and then I helped correct any grammar or spelling errors. So her writing and grammar skills are probably pretty typical for a 3rd grader, but she learned the skills in context, in an activity she chose.

 

Jackie

[SophiaH]

We do formal schoolwork (the three R's) in the morning, and interested led (content) subjects in the afternoon.

 

We do something like this already since we follow somewhat of a LCC philosophy, so I guess I already have the framework in place.

 

English next year will consist of LLfLotR (heavily tweaked, mostly done orally), plus spelling, typing, and handwriting. His handwriting is painfully slow, which causes a lot of problems since he can think about 100 times faster than he can write — his brain is always getting way ahead of his pencil, and then he has to stop and concentrate on writing the letters or guessing the spelling, then he loses his train of thought, and it gets very frustrating. I want him to be a reasonably fast typist and decent speller before we get heavily into writing.

 

Yes, this is more what I was wondering. Dd loves practicing her typing, and has this same problem with thinking much faster than she can write--which probably adds to her reversing letters and using non-sensical spelling, since she's thinking more about the ideas rather than the process of writing itself. I guess I'm worried how NOT to neglect certain skills, especially in Lang. Arts, w/o using continuous incremental curricula, even when that constant repetition is in one ear, out the other. (Three years of grammar and three years of AAS, and no inroads made in either discipline.) What it really comes down to, though, is that the way she learns (big picture, whole-to-parts, difficult conceptual understanding coming before fitting the pieces in) is so contradictory to my own learning style that I'm having trouble letting go...

 

I do teach him many of the skills necessary for writing in other ways, though. Below is an example of how I use TC courses, which I posted in another thread:

 

Thanks for re-posting that. That is very helpful! I've thought about doing something similar. Dd is going to be doing a President's notebook this year and I found this resource from which I thought would be good to teach simple outlining. She could use her outline and eventually some other resources we own to rewrite a short essay on each President. Many of these skills could be culled from Classical Composition that I already have on the agenda.

 

Activities like programming, chess, and strategy games can develop logic skills, and we discuss things constantly — over lunch, over dinner, in the car, while on nature walks, watching documentaries, etc. We might discuss how a specific commercial is trying to manipulate the viewer, or why a politician chose certain words, or whether a history documentary presented a balanced view of the subject. It just makes more sense to me to teach analytical and critical thinking skills in the course of daily life, especially at this age, verses handing kids a Critical Thinking workbook.

Yes, I agree with this. I *adore* anything with puzzles & logic and so we don't have a problem incorporating them through games or more naturally either.

 

My DD is totally different from DS, she loves to write — letters, funny stories, even "reports." Last year she wanted to make a little book of reports on Egyptian pharaohs and queens, so I helped her write half a dozen reports (6-8 sentences), which she illustrated. I walked her through the process of thinking of 3-4 important facts about each person, adding a general introductory sentence and a conclusion, and then I helped correct any grammar or spelling errors. So her writing and grammar skills are probably pretty typical for a 3rd grader, but she learned the skills in context, in an activity she chose.

Dd loves to create, but I think her poor writing and drawing ability has really held her back in this regard. But she lights up anytime I let her use the computer to type something, so maybe I should allow her to type more of her work. Duh, huh? :rolleyes:

 

I think I'm just feeling like dd needs a massive structural change in our day to get the most out of her education. She's so eager to please that she does whatever is asked of her, yet I can't help but feel that I'm stifling her with a lot of work that makes me feel better, but is not really doing anything useful for her. Anyway...

 

Thanks so much, Jackie, for your input.