Interesting education article

[Farrar]

I doubt this young lady read all those books in three weeks. I would guess she was well read from her daily life, had seen many plays and used those three weeks for review and test prep.

But that's not what the article said. It said she did the whole course in three weeks, not that she did readings and thin kings all year then did all the written products and tests in three weeks. Sure, you could do that. But that's not the same thing as fitting a whole year of learning into three weeks.

[Joyofsixreboot]

Just going to put in that my kids' AP English class at the local high school reads 4 books a semester.  If this was a public school online program each "course" is a semester long.  It could be done in 3 weeks.  My 9th grader who does PS Connections Academy is always done before the schedule says she should be.  It might not be optimal but for many families just getting the 'requirements' out of the way leaves time for other student directed interests.  That is the case with my dd.  She reads constantly, performs in theater and is definitely using her brain whether she is doing "course work" or not.  

[a27mom]

But that's not what the article said. It said she did the whole course in three weeks, not that she did readings and thin kings all year then did all the written products and tests in three weeks. Sure, you could do that. But that's not the same thing as fitting a whole year of learning into three weeks.

I doesn't say she fit a years worth of learning in 3 weeks. It says:

 

" She finished a year’s worth of work in one class in three weeks of intensive effort instead of little dribs and drabs along the year the way they do in public school. "

 

Work implies that she completed all the class requirements. Assignments, tests, essays. Not that she started every class as a blank slate.

[JustEm]

When I was in high school I had already read most of the books that I had as assigned class reading in my English classes.  This meant I was able to just write a report/take a test/ or do whatever other assignment given without rereading the book.  Skimming it or reading summaries of it to refresh my mind was enough to get the work done.  I still did a years worth of English (and could have done it in 3 weeks) but it just wasn't as much as the other students because I had read the books before the class because I read a lot.  I can't imagine being able to do it if I had not read any of the books prior to the 3 weeks unless I just read cliffnotes, which you could do and easily past any assignments given.

 

But that's not what the article said. It said she did the whole course in three weeks, not that she did readings and thin kings all year then did all the written products and tests in three weeks. Sure, you could do that. But that's not the same thing as fitting a whole year of learning into three weeks.

 

[Farrar]

But how many students come to the class having already read the major works? And how misleading and dangerous is it for people to try to say, "a year of work in just three weeks!" without prefacing it with the small print of, "after extensive readings and life experiences..."? Sure, there are circumstances in which this can work. But for most kids? Also, any class that is all material a child has already covered isn't doing them a service. I agree with the notion that we should not stoop to seeing education as being the easiest way out.

[vonfirmath]

A summer college class is 5 weeks long.  So, 3 weeks of intensive work on a high school sounds about right.  She just worked on one class during that time period. 

 

I took HS Geometry in summer school WAy Back when and was VERY thankful I didn't have to deal with that during an entire school year. I think I would have been really bored

 

I read Gone with the Wind during the same summer class because another kid challenged me about it and I realized I'd never read it, just seen the movie. So. Yeah. It wasn't that hard. I could have done it in less time if the class was more hours/fewer extra curricular activities.

[a27mom]

But how many students come to the class having already read the major works? And how misleading and dangerous is it for people to try to say, "a year of work in just three weeks!" without prefacing it with the small print of, "after extensive readings and life experiences..."? Sure, there are circumstances in which this can work. But for most kids? Also, any class that is all material a child has already covered isn't doing them a service. I agree with the notion that we should not stoop to seeing education as being the easiest way out.

No where in the article does it say that this is a recommendation for most kids. In fact the article is clearly discussing the fact that different kids learn in different ways so need different types of schooling.

 

Also the list of great works posted earlier is not even remotely the norm for high school. And it doesn't seem that this student is planning a lit major. There are lots of kid who could read 4 books in 3 weeks and do the work involved. There are also lots of kids who couldn't and wouldn't want to.

 

This girl works 3 days a week in tv production and historical research. So we could say that her courses in communications, history, and probably writing are going on year round, hardly taking the easy way out.

 

Not everyone needs to study every subject in depth, and really most people can't. But you do need to cover the subjects necessary for a high school diploma. And that frequently requires you to demonstrate mastery of material you might already know, if you are going through traditional schools or online programs.

 

The whole point of the article is that there needs to be a large variety of options available. This is one excellent option for some people. I actually could envision my older daughter doing very well with it. Maybe that's why I might sound a little fired up :) she is young so it may not last, but she focuses on one subject at a time already, and yet seems to have great retention when she returns to a subject after a hiatus. I could easily see her covering her humanities courses in this manner and then focussing her other time on some methodical logical studies like math, economics, computers etc... That really tickle her. I wish I could have done high school that way.

[lewelma]

Just out of curiousity Lewelma I thought audits weren't done much now - most of the homeschoolers I know are of the unschooling kind whose kids can't read at 8. I find it hard they could prove they were teaching "as regularly and well" as school as some of them don't actually do any work ERO would recognise as such.

 

You are right, they are not done as routine anymore, but rather only when there has been a complaint.  The homeschooling community here have spent a few months really discussing what "as regularly and as well" means because someone just failed a review and their children were required to go back to school.  Apparently, the students had been doing very limited math and writing, which does not meet ERO's interpretation of "as regularly and as well."  As I used to be an unschooler, I have been helping other unschoolers to design a brief categorized journal of the weekly activities/learning happening in their home to protect them if ERO ever came knocking on their door. In general, you want to have all 7 learning areas covered "regularly," regardless of your homeschooling philosophy (unschooling, classical, etc).  Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.  

[Korrale]

Do we even know what the class was?

I took some kind of typing business secretarial class in highschool for 2 years. We learn how to use MS word and how to. Format differnt styles of letters. I can't even remember the name of the class. But I figure I could probably have done that class in 3 weeks with no effort.

 

The class could also be a film and production class in which one is to learn some techniques and a little back history.

 

Any math class could potentially be done. Math classes are often taken in summer school because they are easy to do in an intensive format. Most people I know that did summer school did it for math as they did better that way. However after the 3 weeks she would have just gone into the next math class.

[kiwik]

You are right, they are not done as routine anymore, but rather only when there has been a complaint. The homeschooling community here have spent a few months really discussing what "as regularly and as well" means because someone just failed a review and their children were required to go back to school. Apparently, the students had been doing very limited math and writing, which does not meet ERO's interpretation of "as regularly and as well." As I used to be an unschooler, I have been helping other unschoolers to design a brief categorized journal of the weekly activities/learning happening in their home to protect them if ERO ever came knocking on their door. In general, you want to have all 7 learning areas covered "regularly," regardless of your homeschooling philosophy (unschooling, classical, etc). Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

That must have been hard for everyone. The main reason the principal of my son's school is so anti homes hook is he has experienced a couple of cases where kids were returned (either forcibly or because the patents could/would no longer home school) in late primary having had little or no instruction in reading, writing or maths. Every time it happens it makes it harder for everyone else. I am just a wanna-be home schooler.

[stripe]

But how many students come to the class having already read the major works? And how misleading and dangerous is it for people to try to say, "a year of work in just three weeks!" without prefacing it with the small print of, "after extensive readings and life experiences..."? Sure, there are circumstances in which this can work. But for most kids? Also, any class that is all material a child has already covered isn't doing them a service. I agree with the notion that we should not stoop to seeing education as being the easiest way out.

Sort of like "Learn fluent German in ONLY three weeks!*"

* Class only open to those who can make a grammatically and punctuationally-correct (is that a word?! well, since I'm talking about German, I'll say YES!) sentence with the following words: Fahrvergnügen, Wanderlust, Zeitgeist, Muesli, and Realpolitik. And yes, the sentence must be in German. "I was eating muesli while experiencing wanderlust" does not count. Bonus points will be awarded to those with an umlaut in their name.

 

(I love econ, but apparently the admin at our school thought it a good place to store athletics coaches.)

 

Emily

Sheesh, did you go to my high school?

[vonfirmath]

Books and other works I had to read during my senior year in high school English:

* All of Canturbury Tales

* Gulliver's Travels

* Heart of Darkness

* Hamlet

* Macbeth

* Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

* Jane Eyre

* Wuthering Heights

* Equus

* The Importance of Being Earnest

* To the Lighthouse

* Beowulf

* Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

* Dubliners

* School for Scandal

* Howard's End

* I know we read a Dickens...  I'm so sure, but I can't remember which one...  Probably Tale of Two Cities

* substantial selections from The Fairie Queen and Paradise Lost

* pretty much all of the poetry in the Norton Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1

* literary criticism essays about many of the works we read

 

I consider that a relatively rigorous one year curriculum.  I think it would be sheer absurdity to do it in three weeks.  You'd have to read the entirety of each work in a day.  And, maybe, just reading from morning to night, you could do that.  Probably, actually if you were focused.  But what if you additionally had essays about each one?  By the end of it, would you remember anything at all?  It would just be grueling.

 

I agree that a three week course might work for some topics and subjects.  But I don't buy it for a truly rigorous English class, except possibly for the most gifted of students.

 

I was in Honors English all 4 years of HS and we didn't read this much ANY of those years. (And I ended up with a 4 on the AP English exam I took. Though I don't remember taking an explicit AP English class)

 

[Harriet Vane]

I was in Honors English all 4 years of HS and we didn't read this much ANY of those years. (And I ended up with a 4 on the AP English exam I took. Though I don't remember taking an explicit AP English class)

 

Yes, this list seems out of the norm. I went to an academically rigorous, college-prep private high school, and I have a degree in English and Rhetoric from a highly-regarded university. I have a friend who teaches AP English in a school setting. This list does not match what I know to be normal even for AP.

[stripe]

Seattime is so important in my area that bilingual students cannot test out of FL in public school. That's four years (gr 7 to 10) that an affluent child learns nothing new for one daily class period (although they get a lot of NHS service hrs). 

They could do what some of my bilingual friends did: learn a new language! (I also have friends who were good or somewhat good at their home language, but couldn't read or write it so took their language in order to learn more advanced grammar and vocabulary, and writing.)

 

I don't know what being "affluent" has to do with anything. (Actually most of the bilingual people I know are not wealthy.)