Support for designing your own curriculum

[Publia]

There are a number of comments about how the DIY/design-your-own element of homeschooling seems to be disappointingly shrinking, so I thought I’d address that sentiment from the perspective of a newer HSer. (We’re four years in.)

First, I think the posting on these forums might not completely reflect the amount of DIY that’s truly going on in homeschooling today, in part because those of us who are inclined that way are kind of overwhelmed time-wise (I have really young children in addition to my upper-elementary aged child and bathrooms and a kitchen that desperately need to be cleaned, let’s not even think about the piles of laundry!) and mostly looking for the advice/thoughts of those who have BTDT. I particularly value the experience that others have, especially those who are partly/entirely on the other side of it. Got a teenager who writes really well? Then I want to hear how you built towards that! That sort of thing is super helpful in organizing my thoughts. The other things I love here are the posts that have great lists of books others have read and loved (I live for those!), and the ones that explicitly or implicitly remind me that an experimental approach that’s thoughtful is highly likely to turn out wonderfully on all fronts in the long-term.

Second, outsourcing/drop-off options, online options, and particularly the idea that you must be an “expert” or somehow “certified” by an external authority to do education well—all of that really does have an impact on the number of parents who are willing to take a DIY approach. (Also, the laundry. Oh, and the noise level that a house full of youngish kids all too frequently reaches, even if they are generally well-behaved, love to read, and have plenty of outdoor time/physical activity.) Yes, some parents simply aren’t that interested in actually putting in the work of HS, but I think many more are just intimidated and fearful of messing it all up. The notion that you need to be a certified expert—as opposed to only thoughtful and willing to put in the effort—to teach is strong, and I think it pushes many parents in the direction of the perceived safety of having someone else’s imprimatur on their educational plans.

Anyhow, all that is to say that I want to participate in these types of discussions here, and I guess from my perspective, if the discussions move a little (or even very) slowly, I think it’s more about people taking time to formulate a thoughtful response amidst all the other things they have to do. Which is okay with me, because I think we all stand to benefit from that type of exchange.

[Zoo Keeper]

9 hours ago, Lori D. said:

 

Lol... Guess I still haven't grown up, as I still post "dissertations" ... 😄 Probably because I hardly use my phone, except for rare texting bouts with DS#2 when he's off in the woods on a break from forest fire fighting... 😂

Please keep posting the long ones!

I have a folder filled with print outs of many older (early 2000's) threads from here-- quite a few pages come from you. 🙂  (and from 8!) 🙂   I pull out my folder every year when I do planning to remind me of those ideas and discussions that made me think about how school could be.  Some folks have been great to read for philosophy or ideas, the shaft of light that helps you see something different, and others have been very practical, very "here's how to break it down".  Both types are helpful.  

Anyway, I'm grateful for long-winded posters. 🙂

 

[El...]

12 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

The only subject I've created is what we (not so) lovingly call "Bitchery." That's just a reading list and discussion though. 

This one, please.  🙂

[MamaHill]

2 hours ago, Monica_in_Switzerland said:

There is a real, and I think understandable, struggle right now (middle schoolers) between researching and teaching.  When all of my kids were in early elementary or pre-school, I actually had significantly more time to participate in threads that were not immediate "help me right now"  questions.  SO MANY of those threads helped to form me as a homeschooler.  I so appreciate those of you with older kids sticking around to participate in those threads.  I now find myself in a position where I might be able to provide some small degree of insight, but the time I need to actually school my kids and educate myself now takes significantly more than it once did.  This is a hard place to be in for me, because the theory threads really recharged my batteries and my motivation.  

But this thread has inspired me to help participate in the revival of the General Ed board here.  

Yes, the bolded is my situation and my experience here at the boards as well.  As my children have gotten older, the amount of time needed for me to read, understand, and plan for school has dramatically increased.  My K-12 education was so sorely lacking that I have spent a ridiculous amount of time re-learning and then figuring out how to teach my children with a big dose of educational philosophy reading on the side.

I don't assume, however, that this is every homeschool mother's situation, but constantly having to stay a step ahead of my children has been my constant.

That, unfortunately, limits my time to interact here on the boards except for the quickie response-type answers on curriculum choice, etc.

I'm not on FB (and will never be again), and it thrills me that this forum is still pretty active.  I'm so grateful for it.

@8FillTheHeart I would love to have a snapshot of what DIY looks like on the high school level.  I've done DIY off and on through the years for K-6th, but I can't quite wrap my head around what that looks like with high school.  I read through @Lori D.'s motherlode HS posts in the recent past, but I'll go back through them and look specifically for the DIY info.

ETA: I saw in my profile it lists my join date as 2017, which is bizarre.  I've been reading here since 2010 at least.

Edited June 4, 2020 by MamaHill

[Guest]

I will say that knowing how other people have approached DIY has been helpful this year. We did mostly DIY for years, and then DD started college classes, and was happy, so I drifted away, but her senior year is going to be mostly DIY again because she really, really dislikes the way her college did online in the Spring, and doesn’t want to take classes at a different school that sound interesting only to have them become “read and answer questions” vs discussion or “watch video and write report” vs live lab. So, we’re piecing things together, usually with a big pile of books, and trying to find discussion outlets where appropriate. 

 

What makes me nervous about jumping into give advice is that I have just one kid. And what she needed and thrived on doesn’t necessarily apply to other kids (as an example, she spent most of middle school reading history books from around the world, usually high school textbooks and trade books, and drawing a comic book summary of it with the main characters as snakes. I’m not sure that’s a strategy to recommend to anyone else!) 

With my tutoring kids/bonus kids, I DIY my sessions, but I also have to make sure that what I do will support whatever materials they are using in their classroom or at home. It’s different than DIYing for my own kid, where I am there all the time. And different from DIYing for a classroom, where everything is a compromise and usually isn’t just right for anyone.
 

 

[cintinative]

I am interested and did request to join via FB.  However, I do think that perhaps we should try for something here. I help moderate a page for moms on FB and I think about half of my job is deleting posts that break the rules (we don't allow advertisements).  

As we are entering high school (and doing high school work in junior high), I have so many concerns and questions about how it works to develop your own curriculum. I have created my own plans for subjects prior, but I wasn't trying to count them for credit.  I would welcome a discussion here for sure.  

ETA; started a thread on the High school board. 😃

Edited June 4, 2020 by cintinative

[Lori D.]

I was going to quote everybody, but to quote Inigo Montoya: "there is too much, I will sum up..." 😂

Agreeing and adding to the most recent posts above of @MissLemon and @Monica_in_Switzerland and @mms and @Plum -- that there may be problems in taking the potential conversation to FB:
1. not everyone who would like to participate in such conversations is on FB (that would be me)
2. potential for a FB group to move away from the original idea 
3. and I'll also add: moving to FB could potentially drastically reduce amount of eyeballs seeing the conversation in order to even be able to participate; plus, potentially fewer people could mean much reduced amount of conversation of any type -- there's only so much any one person can contribute to such conversations -- it really helps when there's a "village" discussing 😉 

Also: I love the thoughts of @Publia and @Zoo Keeper and @Monica_in_Switzerland and @mms about working to "reclaim" the General Board, or to start threads on the various educational boards to spark new discussions. Now that most people are on their summer breaks from school (if not year-round schooling), would be the perfect time to do this, and help people who are planning for next year, as well as giving people who are new to homeschooling and new to these boards some new perspectives and deeper thoughts about educating their children. And during summer break, people have more time to ponder and think about educational philosophies and de

 

7 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

My goal isn't to attempt to reinvent anything... My thoughts were more along lines of parents having an easy place to find support for the "selecting books to read, discuss, ask questions" approach to education without feeling intimidated and without their ideas being lost in voices of prepackaged, CC, coops, outsourced/online options which is the conversation that dominates most homeschooling discussions today.  

I can't personally fathom writing any more about it than I already do. I have been writing about it on these forums for almost 20 yrs. Posting isn't the same as a conversation.  I enjoy having conversations.  The odd thread here and there is not really conversational.  Maybe it is simply in the perspective.  It is hard to miss something you have never experienced. But it isn't my perception alone.  These conversations have been taking place on here for a while.

I think part of it is that you have an educational background and understanding of educational philosophies that have drifted to the background in the past 30 years as newer educational approaches and philosophies have come (and gone) and come, in the educational realm as a whole (not just in homeschooling). Also, virtually all of your educational peers who were familiar with those older ideas (as well as competing older ideas and philosophies) have "retired" and moved on from these boards. Together, both of those facts mean that you're always having to "start over" in sharing your educational philosophy, to build common ground for discussion with new, younger homeschoolers.

I imagine that because during your homeschooling years you've also had to multiple times physically move to different cities and rebuild relationships and just get used to "the new place", that it must feel very exhausting to have to do the same thing on a board that keeps changing every few years as "older" people leave and "newer" people come.

I also think that in the past 30 years, as the internet and chat boards and social media have developed, *overall* the nature of chat boards is that it is harder to have lengthy discussions (unless you're a dinosaur like me with dissertation-length posts 😂). Twitter limits you to 144 characters, for goodness' sake. And while i-phones are great for instantaneous access, they are a bear to type out long messages -- we're trained to do short texts on them, with emoticons and shorten words or use abbreviations in place of whole phrases. Our brains are literally being rewired by our interactions with visual media and computer communications, with one result being that we don't have the stamina and "tolerance" for reading much beyond a few sentences or a paragraph before we're clicking and scrolling to the next thing. It is extremely difficult to have a conversation of any depth that way.

I totally understand if moving to a FB group is better for meeting your needs, and as a platform for being able to share from your ideas and wisdom. I just also hope it does not mean we lose you from these boards. 😍

Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Lori D.

[8filltheheart]

I think the idea that your identity on these forum is unidentifiable is a false sense of security.  We have moved over the yrs and people have known who I was simply bc of my posting on these forums even though I had no idea who they were.  (8 kids, 1 autistic, ages, etc.)  I had one mom tell me she had a file of my posts.  😉  I think the fact that your kids go to Catholic school and you have an adopted child with disabilities and that you are a SN teacher means that you are easily identifialbe to anyone who meets you if they have read the forums.  It is what happens when you post publicly.  (I never post anything that I don't want strangers to know.  What I post, I'd pretty much tell anyone.)

FWIW, I did add a question to the joining and I am not going to admit people who don't answer.  It is a simple enough question that not answering says more than the answer itself.  😉

Edited June 4, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[8filltheheart]

3 minutes ago, Plum said:

I have a second FB account that’s anonymous. It’s come in handy with his new job when I want to comment but I have to watch what I say and where because my name is attached.
A friend just changed her last name in FB because her dh is a police officer. Obviously she has a lot to say but it can’t reflect on him. Plus safety is a factor. Everyone that knows her understands why she changed her name. No questions asked. 
All that to say, sometimes it’s freeing to have an anonymous account. The people that know you will know it’s you but no one else will. 
I also get it’s difficult enough juggling one social media account so why would anyone possibly want another? 😊

Yes.  I also have zero FB profile since I don't post anything other than on a private group.  My name is there and that I own TC, but that is all (plus a fake bday).  I figure my name is in my books, so it isn't a secret anymore (though I did have qualms when I first published them.)  I am not someone who actively FBs.  A fake profile requires an email address and that is it.  No one fact checks your FB name! 🙂 (My kids have accounts from their early teens and they don't use their real name.  They have never changed accts, so they have had to explain to people that is who they are and why. 😉

 

[Garga]

The majority of my classes from 8th grade down were DIY, and about 1/3 of high school classes were DIY. I loved my own DIY classes!  I was pretty pleased with all of them.

Right now, my oldest just graduated and my youngest just finished 9th grade at a cyber school, and he’ll continue at the cyber school, so I’m out of the homeschool loop for current things.  I could contribute my past experiences, of course.

I don’t like FB for discussions.  How do you search for a post on FB?  If I join a group and if I get a notification that someone commented on something I wrote, and I click on that notification, FB will take me to the group page, but at the top. It will NOT take to me where the person actually commented.  It will take me to my post if someone “liked” it, but NOT if they commented on it.  And then FB will not put the posts in any order I can figure out, so I have to scroll, scroll, scroll to try and figure out which post I posted on and if someone wrote back to me on it.  It’s impossible sometimes to find the post. This is an absolute dealbreaker for what you want, 8.

So, I think doing this on FB would be pointless in the long term.  There is no way to go back in time and review threads, or tell a newbie, “Hey, we discussed that just a few weeks ago, here’s a link to the post.”  Instead, everything has to be done new each time because you can’t find old posts without endlessly scrolling.  Imagine 3 months from now and you’re thinking, “I remember back in June (if you even remember which month)  that there was a great post...but I can’t sit here and try to scroll through 3 months of posts.”

Or am I wrong? Is there some sort of search feature on FB groups where you can find keywords?  

Edited June 4, 2020 by Garga

[Garga]

And as far as homeschooling and the boards changing over the past 20 years, I’m sure it has.  

In 1965 when my mother was 15 years old, she was parented completely differently from how I was parented twenty years later in 1985 when I was 12 years old.  And again with the way I parent my kids now is completely different from how my parents did things.

The way I got a job in 1995 when I was 22 years old is completely different from how 22 years old got jobs In 2015. I had a high school diploma and worked my way up a little ladder.  Nowadays, a 22 yo can’t get in the door of my old job with only that HS diploma.

A twenty-year time span can see dramatic changes.  As much as we can long for the good things that are gone with the past, it’s just the nature of life. The world changes. Values change. New opportunities exist and old ones are gone forever.

And of course, we miss the good and wish we could get it back. It’s sad, but it’s how things are.

 

ETA:  With that said—that’s no reason not to introduce a bit of the wisdom and style of the past to the next generation!  I think the idea of discussing DIY curric is excellent. And if no one else is talking about it, then why not try to get that conversational ball rolling? I think it’s a great idea, 8.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Garga

[lewelma]

8 hours ago, mms said:

I would personally like to see more of the nitty gritty details of other people’s plans. I’ve found so many resources thanks to others describing what they do! But, I also like to know what day to day looks like, what an actual lesson looks like, how all the resources look pulled together.

I've done DIY from K to 12 for both my kids.  My older informed me last night that he very much values what we did in highschool, and that he is alone at college amongst the homeschoolers to have actually done DIY through highschool. I outsourced only 2 classes for my older (both fell flat) and none for my younger. I have really had no choice because there are basically no options here in NZ for outsourcing, especially for gifted kids. 

I am always happy to share how we have created a learning environment together, but I really need a thread with a questions.  It looks pretty bad to just start a thread to discuss myself. haha. 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by lewelma

[lewelma]

7 hours ago, square_25 said:

Anyway, that's my pet peeve. I've had trouble having conversations about how to teach math in a non-standard ways without people seeming kind of offended that I'm dismissing the standard sequence and the standard approaches. But then math is probably the subject people are least creative about, on average. 

Oh, let's start another argument, Square.  We can usually really get it going! How about the value of drill vs investigations. Just to switch it up, you take drill and I'll take investigations. 🙂 

[Rosie_0801]

7 hours ago, dmmetler said:

What makes me nervous about jumping into give advice is that I have just one kid. And what she needed and thrived on doesn’t necessarily apply to other kids (as an example, she spent most of middle school reading history books from around the world, usually high school textbooks and trade books, and drawing a comic book summary of it with the main characters as snakes. I’m not sure that’s a strategy to recommend to anyone else!) 

 

And yet these were the sorts of posts that convinced me that I could homeschool high school. Clearly anything weird my kid did would be less weird than what you others made work!

[daijobu]

I haven't seen this mentioned here, but one big problem I have with FB is the recursive nature of the posts.  Sometimes I come late to an interesting topic, and I see there are already 30 posts, with replies within other replies, sub-posts within posts.  Some are long and informative, some short like "following!" and "me too".  Sometimes if it's a post longer than 5 lines, you need to click again to reveal the whole thing.  I know it seems weird to write when all I'm doing is waving a cursor around, but it gets exhausting.  

One thing that drew me to these boards is the linear nature of the threads.  If I'm late the conversation, it's a matter of simply reading: start to finish.  (like with this thread!)  

If this applies to you, may I suggest google groups or groups.io?  

[Rosie_0801]

8 hours ago, elroisees said:

This one, please.  🙂

 

'Queen bees and Wannabes' and 'UnF### Your Boundaries workbook' have been the main two. (We have severe time constraints, so it took us 3 years to get through Queen Bees.) Also, modern sex ed books often cover healthy relationships and literature often covers unhealthy relationships. "No Mr Wickhams!" when she was a small person watching Pride and Prejudice on video became "No Mr Compeysons either!" when she was a somewhat bigger person watching, then reading Dickens. 'Ophelia Speaks' is the next on our list. We've also done a little on how the brain works and need to find time to fit in more of that. 'A Child's Guide to Trauma' was a good one too.  She also has a set of emotional intelligence cards she uses frequently, to help her figure out what is bothering her and if she can do anything about it.

[Shoeless]

 

4 hours ago, square_25 said:

Agreed. I actually feel considerably more private on Facebook. At least there, the group posts are private and not searchable by Google. I've always been quite indiscreet on these forums, because my basic info is more than enough to identify me, so there's almost no point unless I was going to be extremely zealous about it. The only thing I hope is that some people I know IRL don't figure out who this is ;-). 

I think what you get with FB is, yes, a bigger audience, and a faster pace. You also get fewer really thoughtful posts and need to put in a lot more work to make it run. So there's definitely a list of pros and cons. It's not one or the other. 

 

I know that I am not completely anonymous here, but it would take effort for someone to figure out who I am in real life. I"m sure it wouldn't take a huge amount of time, but it would still require someone to make a purposeful attempt to dox me.  But on facebook, my name is right there, and you can easily figure out where I live based on pages I've interacted with. 

My weirdness about this topic is because I kept "bumping into" local people in large national groups and feeling like I needed to bite my tongue to avoid offending someone or getting pounced on.  That's disappointing because the whole reason I seek out bigger or different groups is because we've struggled to find a community we really belong to here.  I do not feel like I can speak openly in the local groups.  I have to bite my tongue a lot in my area.  It's a small town and everyone is in everyone else's business and has an opinion about it. 

[Shoeless]

3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Yeah, that seems to happen in not-so-small towns, too :-/. I do bite my tongue a lot as well here in NYC. The place is big, but the secular homeschooling community is small. 

 

My family is a unicorn here.  I am secularly homeschooling a gifted only child in a rural Texas town. Oooh, just typing it out makes me wonder why I even bothered trying to fit in around here. It was doomed to fail from the start.

There are 2 or 3 other secular families here, but they are either radical unschoolers or into super woo-woo pseudo-science.  When I've tried to talk about what our day looks like or books we use, people have just stopped me and said "This is all too weird" and laughed. 

 

[Shoeless]

I've got loads of opinions on various homeschool topics. Stuff like "Most Secular Science Programs are Dull and Uninspiring" and "Maybe the 5-Paragraph Essay is a Waste of Time" and "It's totally fine to skip dissection labs if your child has no interest in a scientific field".  I'd be more than happy to pontificate on those ideas, but I suspect that a lot of people with kids older than mine will roll their eyes and mutter "Newbie" under their breath.  

And maybe I am an idiot newbie, lol.  I'm homeschooling an only child. I've only been at this for 6 or 7 years.  I have no proof of concept yet. My entire "methodology" in teaching this child is based on him and his interests and strengths. It isn't based on an over-arching philosophy of education.  I've read only a few books on pedagogy and set them aside because they didn't resonate with me. 

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, MissLemon said:

I've got loads of opinions on various homeschool topics. Stuff like "Most Secular Science Programs are Dull and Uninspiring" and "Maybe the 5-Paragraph Essay is a Waste of Time" and "It's totally fine to skip dissection labs if your child has no interest in a scientific field".  I'd be more than happy to pontificate on those ideas, but I suspect that a lot of people with kids older than mine will roll their eyes and mutter "Newbie" under their breath.  

And maybe I am an idiot newbie, lol.  I'm homeschooling an only child. I've only been at this for 6 or 7 years.  I have no proof of concept yet. My entire "methodology" in teaching this child is based on him and his interests and strengths. It isn't based on an over-arching philosophy of education.  I've read only a few books on pedagogy and set them aside because they didn't resonate with me. 

FWIW, I have a likely biologist who has been interested in animals since she was tiny-and several biology professors gave me permission to skip dissection labs. She used college anatomy books, models and simulations for comparative anatomy. 

[Wheres Toto]

8 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I think the idea that your identity on these forum is unidentifiable is a false sense of security.  We have moved over the yrs and people have known who I was simply bc of my posting on these forums even though I had no idea who they were.  (8 kids, 1 autistic, ages, etc.)  I had one mom tell me she had a file of my posts.  😉  I think the fact that your kids go to Catholic school and you have an adopted child with disabilities and that you are a SN teacher means that you are easily identifialbe to anyone who meets you if they have read the forums.  It is what happens when you post publicly.  (I never post anything that I don't want strangers to know.  What I post, I'd pretty much tell anyone.)

FWIW, I did add a question to the joining and I am not going to admit people who don't answer.  It is a simple enough question that not answering says more than the answer itself.  😉

 

I help moderate our local homeschool facebook group and we literally ask two questions  - Are you local? and Are you planning or currently homeschooling?  If not, why do you want to join our group.   I give people 24 hours after requesting membership to respond and then I delete the request.   

I'm fairly active on Facebook.  In addition to moderating the local group, my two 4-H clubs have pages on there to share information, my business has two separate pages (one homeschool oriented, one publicly/B&M schooled oriented), and I belong to a million other groups.  My personal page is mostly occasional pictures of the kids and memes.  

Anyone who knows me IRL could figure out who I am here pretty easily.   Anyone who worked at it a little bit could figure out who I am IRL based on posts here, I'm sure.    I'm fairly careful what I share and try not to be too controversial, although I don't worry about it as much on the private social groups.    I don't think there are many people from my local area on here.  I've met one or two but the vast majority don't seem interested in any kind of discussion or research.   A lot of unschoolers in my area so they are probably on a different type of board. 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Where's Toto?

[El...]

6 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

'Queen bees and Wannabes' and 'UnF### Your Boundaries workbook' have been the main two. (We have severe time constraints, so it took us 3 years to get through Queen Bees.) Also, modern sex ed books often cover healthy relationships and literature often covers unhealthy relationships. "No Mr Wickhams!" when she was a small person watching Pride and Prejudice on video became "No Mr Compeysons either!" when she was a somewhat bigger person watching, then reading Dickens. 'Ophelia Speaks' is the next on our list. We've also done a little on how the brain works and need to find time to fit in more of that. 'A Child's Guide to Trauma' was a good one too.  She also has a set of emotional intelligence cards she uses frequently, to help her figure out what is bothering her and if she can do anything about it.

Thank you!!

[Shoeless]

14 hours ago, dmmetler said:

What makes me nervous about jumping into give advice is that I have just one kid. And what she needed and thrived on doesn’t necessarily apply to other kids (as an example, she spent most of middle school reading history books from around the world, usually high school textbooks and trade books, and drawing a comic book summary of it with the main characters as snakes. I’m not sure that’s a strategy to recommend to anyone else!) 

 

I actually want to hear everything you have to say about this strategy because it is similar in a lot of ways to how I teach my son. Well, minus the snakes (hilarious!)

[Wheres Toto]

22 hours ago, dmmetler said:

ous about jumping into give advice is that I have just one kid. And what she needed and thrived on doesn’t necessarily apply to other kids (as an example, she spent most of middle school reading history books from around the world, usually high school textbooks and trade books, and drawing a comic book summary of it with the main characters as snakes. I’m not sure that’s a strategy to recommend to anyone else!)

 

I LOVE this.  I wish my kids had a strong interest that I could pull in like this.  I'd even love for it to be snakes.  🙂   

You've actually given me an idea.   My youngest loves doing digital drawings - she draws a lot of fandom characters, does little comic strips some time.   I wonder if she would be interested in doing something like that for history or literature.  

[Guest]

It came naturally, in that she had started drWing characters in the outline pages for SoTW 4, including a narrator character who would come out when “lots of Uck is happening, christened “Uck Hissi”. The following year, we decided to look more globally, so I ordered, on suggestion from some folks here, the Galore Park History for Common Entrance books, which took a timeline approach to British history. In looking through them, it was painfully obvious that the questions and writing prompts listed were designed for exam prep, and far more specific than I felt she needed, so I pretty much just told her to keep outlining like she had for SOTW, except that without the premade form, it turned into a comic book, with each step illustrated with figures, and explanation at the bottom, and Uck hissi’s asides. I discovered later that many of the species were accurate (so, the character for Ireland was a lizard-there are no snakes in Ireland, and the same for every other colony.) Britain was successful, so after that I did the same thing with textbooks from Australia, India and Canada, some trade books about South Africa history written by South African Historians, a couple of books about New Zealand, a few from other countries, the Indigenous person’s guide to US History. All told, it took three years, during which the only output was many, many notebooks filled with comics of reptiles talking about history.

And something else happened. She went from being OK with history to really enjoying it, and has done a lot of history and history related topics in high school, both taking college classes and on her own. 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by dmmetler

[knitgrl]

Judging by the plethora of curriculum and teaching aids hawked by homeschool bloggers, which seems to have increased in the 6 years we've been hs'ing, one could argue that more people than ever are creating their own curriculum as a side hustle. But, I wonder if this is part of the reason that it is talked about less. My impression is that 20 years ago, the curriculum was not nearly as pretty, and there was less of it. It's a lot easier now to find something pretty that is closer to your worldview, so people don't feel like they have to make their own because it's so easy to find something that is close enough? Just a thought.

[8filltheheart]

1 hour ago, knitgrl said:

Judging by the plethora of curriculum and teaching aids hawked by homeschool bloggers, which seems to have increased in the 6 years we've been hs'ing, one could argue that more people than ever are creating their own curriculum as a side hustle. But, I wonder if this is part of the reason that it is talked about less. My impression is that 20 years ago, the curriculum was not nearly as pretty, and there was less of it. It's a lot easier now to find something pretty that is closer to your worldview, so people don't feel like they have to make their own because it's so easy to find something that is close enough? Just a thought.

I don't know.  There may be a lot more stuff available, but quality and matching abilities/specific goals are still huge hurdles. (Not to mention that "side hustle" is rather pejorative.  Selling self-produced curriculum can be a huge hassle (I just spent 2 hrs trying to untangle a sales tax reporting mess and that time was spent for reporting $0 in in-state sales.  I originally shut my business down for a good reason.  I hate dealing with this stuff.)  

I have never found anything I can use as produced.  I couldn't even use my own books that way.  I truly can't fathom using premade plans for the majority of subjects.  We just don't function that way. (Not to mention I would be bored to tears if I had had to teach the same subjects over and over the same way yr after yr.  One of the reasons I enjoy homeschooling is bc things are always different and I enjoy learning alongside my kids.

[knitgrl]

31 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I don't know.  There may be a lot more stuff available, but quality and matching abilities/specific goals are still huge hurdles. (Not to mention that "side hustle" is rather pejorative.  Selling self-produced curriculum can be a huge hassle (I just spent 2 hrs trying to untangle a sales tax reporting mess and that time was spent for reporting $0 in in-state sales.  I originally shut my business down for a good reason.  I hate dealing with this stuff.)  

I have never found anything I can use as produced.  I couldn't even use my own books that way.  I truly can't fathom using premade plans for the majority of subjects.  We just don't function that way. (Not to mention I would be bored to tears if I had had to teach the same subjects over and over the same way yr after yr.  One of the reasons I enjoy homeschooling is bc things are always different and I enjoy learning alongside my kids.

I guess when I said curriculum, I was really thinking about worksheets, and should have said that. I am pretty sure that the world does not need any more preschool worksheets, and yet they are produced in great abundance because they are low hanging fruit. I do not attribute any malicious intent, but the whole worksheet thing takes advantage of newbies' fears. How can I know or prove my kid is learning something if they are not doing worksheets? I know because I have succumbed to this myself. I look at this a bit differently now after teaching ds, who is definitely not a worksheet loving kid. :-)

In the homeschooling world, there's the oft-quoted warning against "schooling at home." Most parents went to ps and that model is how they've always understood what education is until the rubber hits the road and they are teaching and observing a kid who hates worksheets. But we are also part of a larger culture that tells us over and over that if you throw enough money at something, your problems will be fixed. I am grateful for quality, independently-produced curriculum - i used your writing program this year, and will use something published on lulu.com next year. I decided to use them because as you say, they "matched abilitites/specific goals." And perhaps this is the real crux of the issue - really knowing what it is you want to accomplish. It's probably fairly easy to sell to the vaguely dissatisfied, your product doesn't necessarily have to be very good if your customers don't really know what they want.

[daijobu]

18 hours ago, square_25 said:

If I felt like it, I could decide that very few people on this forum have enough "experience" to talk about math education. I've taught many, many students in class settings over the years. I've been doing math seriously since I was a kid. I have an IMO gold medal and a math PhD. I've spend tons and tons of time thinking about math pedagogy. I've written and tested my own class at AoPS. I've now taught little kids in homeschool class settings. 

 

 

WHO ARE YOU?  

(lol!)

Seriously though, did you represent the US?  Were you the gal they featured in the documentary Hard Problems?  

[daijobu]

@square_25:  Also, you might enjoy this documentary about Maryam Mirzakhani, Secrets of the Surface.  You might want to google around and see if there are any online screenings.  (I'm kicking myself now for not telling about the one I attended.  I'm eager to hear your take on her story, particularly her early years, leading up to the IMO.  

[daijobu]

2 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Nope, I was on the Canadian team. And voila, you can probably figure out who I am, lol. That's how common female gold medalists are... 

 

Googling now, lol!  Sincerely, though, that's such an accomplishment.  Gold medal, wow.  

[daijobu]

This was pretty much me just now:

[daijobu]

3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Well, I was pretty pleased with it ;-). As you can see, it didn't lead to an accomplished academic career in this instance... it turned out I didn't want to be a research mathematician, after all. I'm still kind of figuring out what I want to be when I grow up... 

 

What turned you off from an academic career?

[Shoeless]

4 hours ago, square_25 said:

I am pretty used to thinking of a lot of people on here as big white letters on a certain color background! Now I'm going to discover that y'all... *gasp*... have faces! 

I remain faceless. 🐔🐔🐔

[serendipitous journey]

Totally late to the party.  So now I'm more-or-less off-topic.  But: I am interested in designing the shape of our curriculum, though I use mostly organized stuff that I re-shuffle or re-purpose.  I won't use Facebook, though.  Not arguing or trying to convert!  As in, I don't even have time to present my position; but this would be a no-go for me. 

Might it work to start a group like that with a monster thread?  or a unifying thread or "pinned" post -- we could functionally pin it ourselves just by posting regularly enough 😉 -- on these boards?  bet you thought of that already & it's a horrid match for what you envision, but since I was down on Facebook I felt responsible for suggesting an alternative. 

[Porridge]

I'm trying out the FB group, and while it's fun to have these conversations, I do wish they could happen here instead of there. The feed makes it hard to find older discussions, and it's nice to have the structure of the forum as an archive for these discussions. 

I know I haven't been very active here lately, so I've been part of the lack-of-forum-activity-problem. But I think if there is one platform I'd come back to, it would be the forum over FB, just my 2 cents.

[lewelma]

I've started a thread here on the General Board for those who don't want to move to Facebook