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How can you learn calculus as a flow in your life? How can you learn the civil war battles as a part of the flow in your life? How does a 1st grader learn to read as a part of the flow of his/her life? My life and the life of my kids when they were little doesn't have any flow like that?
Z
You can do it when learning is a priority in your home and you have either a large collection of books or you make regular trips to the library. HS/US kids seem to have a larger appetite for reading books b/c they don't have classmates telling them what big nerds they are for reading them.
I taught my younger daughter to read from a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and we would sit down for about 15 minutes a day and read out of it and that was her mom time. If your flow of life can't accommodate your sitting down with your child and a book on a regular basis then it's flowing too fast--and that goes for K12 kids as well as HS/US ones.
I know a couple of kids who learned to read just by being read to frequently and seeing their parents reading for pleasure. They developed a natural curiosity and wanted to know what the words meant. They learned soon after that curiosity set in around the age of 5-6. This is also how I learned to read. I can distinctly remember a period in my childhood where I wanted to learn and once that curiosity set in I became determined to figure it out and I did just that. I learned to read over the summer between Kindergarten and 1st grade, not while in school.
I also recall as a young child being so excited to go to school because I wanted to learn some specific things and then being disappointed that those topics weren't covered. I was fascinated by world history, particularly in the World Wars and the Holocaust but I didn't get the opportunity to explore those things until I was in college. A lot of history taught in school was focused on memorizing names and dates, which were not things that interested me and are not things that I remembered past test day. I wanted all of the juicy details and there just wasn't enough time to get into those, unfortunately.
I'm sorry. Calculus is not something that you can get casually. Even math teachers have to use calculus every day to do it. Its not something you pick up. I suspect that the only children who are going to pick these kinds of subject up us are those with IQ's above 120, calculus excluded.
I would like to see if kids who are schooled in this method have any reasonable score on the tests that are now required of most states. Last week we had a home schooler from a very conscientious family in to take the 3rd grade PA State AYP exams. The poor kid was totally lost. He simply didn't have a clue with the vocabulary of the reading sections, or how to even begin the open ended math questions. Most of the other children who were in class, chugged right into the questions.
It sounds nice and homey, but if un-schooled children are compared performance wise with kids who have had professional instruction, I seriously doubt that you will see much.
I'm sorry. Calculus is not something that you can get casually. Even math teachers have to use calculus every day to do it. Its not something you pick up. I suspect that the only children who are going to pick these kinds of subject up us are those with IQ's above 120, calculus excluded.
I would like to see if kids who are schooled in this method have any reasonable score on the tests that are now required of most states. Last week we had a home schooler from a very conscientious family in to take the 3rd grade PA State AYP exams. The poor kid was totally lost. He simply didn't have a clue with the vocabulary of the reading sections, or how to even begin the open ended math questions. Most of the other children who were in class, chugged right into the questions.
It sounds nice and homey, but if un-schooled children are compared performance wise with kids who have had professional instruction, I seriously doubt that you will see much.
There are also lots of kids who go to school and never learn calculus. I've never ever taken calculus and have a BA. I wasn't interested in math and knew fairly early on that I wanted a career that I enjoyed and that I could find one that didn't involve using higher forms of math. I was much more interested in history, English and science so that is where I put the majority of my focus.
From my understanding most schools spend a lot of time preparing students for standardized tests while most homeschoolers do not. It doesn't surprise me that school kids would perform better on such tests. You also might want to consider the fact that homeschoolers might focus on different material at different times and don't necessarily do things on the same schedule as the public schools. Also consider the material that the tests are measuring. Not all homeschoolers will focus on the exact same information. They may cover certain things that the schools don't cover and vice versa. Can they test for things like critical thinking?
I'm sorry. Calculus is not something that you can get casually. Even math teachers have to use calculus every day to do it. Its not something you pick up. I suspect that the only children who are going to pick these kinds of subject up us are those with IQ's above 120, calculus excluded.
I would like to see if kids who are schooled in this method have any reasonable score on the tests that are now required of most states. Last week we had a home schooler from a very conscientious family in to take the 3rd grade PA State AYP exams. The poor kid was totally lost. He simply didn't have a clue with the vocabulary of the reading sections, or how to even begin the open ended math questions. Most of the other children who were in class, chugged right into the questions.
It sounds nice and homey, but if un-schooled children are compared performance wise with kids who have had professional instruction, I seriously doubt that you will see much.
I thought about your post about learning calculus in the flow of life today while I was supposed to be paying attention to a sermon in church. Here are some ideas I came up with. First of all though, I'll say that any student learning calculus at home is going to be very self-motivated and no school forces kids to learn it--not even universities, unless the kid is going into a field that requires it. So, here is my list:
* Buy a used calculus textbook and work thru the exercises on your own.
* Buy a homeschool calculus program and work thru it on your own--look up confusing parts on the internet and see if you can find a visual aid on there to illustrate tricky concepts
* Take an online class in calculus with an instructor to email and ask questions of
* Sign up for a community college calc class--I believe that most CCs will accept students at 16
*Sign up for a class at a private school that will accept HS students--I know of at least one in this city
*See if your local public school will let you sign up for just this one class
*Ask around to find a mentor--someone who knows the subject very well and see if this person will help the student when problems arise--anyone who loves math and finds a student who loves it enough to do it on his/her own will be more than forthcoming with lots of advice and instruction--most likely. This person will also be likely to become a lifelong friend, so make sure you return the favor with another.
Well that was just a start and I'm sure that there are other options. As you can see, US isn't always just a matter of cooking breakfast while you learn how to double a recipe, and your flow of life may look a lot different from mine.
I totally agree with Dorthy about the testing. If an US learns what interests them and the test isn't on what interests them, they're not likely to do as well as kids who were taught the test. It just stands to reason, but someone had to decide what was important for students to learn and then find a way to measure it. It works fine when you're dealing with vast numbers of students, but HS/US don't even feel a need to give a test ever, b/c it's pretty obvious what they're learning or not learning.
And, as for "nice and homey"? What is homey about traveling around the world and watching turtles lay their eggs on the beach near Bundaberg Australia? Or petting tigers? Or looking for bedbugs in every hostel room you stay in? There is more than one way to skin a cat you know.
If we've given you anything in our posts, I hope the main thing you will take away from this is that US does not equal lack of effort. That is a common misconception and nothing could be further from the truth. If I were US a child and that child refused to do anything but watch TV, I'd slap his little butt back in school so fast it wouldn't be funny, and I work in a high school myself and I see plenty of kids who choose to not do anything or as little as they can get away with. Mine were nothing like that.
Thanks you for your long answer but you missed my point which I was trying avoid being blunt about.
Maybe the point needs to be more specific.
When it comes time for the un schooled student to take a job outside the home, or to go to college, and it turned out that they only have a knowledge base on what interested them, but not on what they need to get into Harvard, what happens?
You can do it when learning is a priority in your home and you have either a large collection of books or you make regular trips to the library. HS/US kids seem to have a larger appetite for reading books b/c they don't have classmates telling them what big nerds they are for reading them.
I taught my younger daughter to read from a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and we would sit down for about 15 minutes a day and read out of it and that was her mom time. If your flow of life can't accommodate your sitting down with your child and a book on a regular basis then it's flowing too fast--and that goes for K12 kids as well as HS/US ones.
I haven't wanted to wade into the rest of this, but I am highly skeptical of the claim (which seems to often be made by both unschoolers and homeschoolers) that those kids are more interested in reading than other kids. I think it comes down to family, as well to individual personalities of the kids. From a pure numbers standpoint I'm sure that the HS/US kids read more than the "average" kid in a more traditional classroom, but that's a skewed sample. In any case, I haven't seen anything in my own life or observations to suggest that this is the case. I think the "nerd" fear factor is overblown, and think that exposing children to books and to the fun of reading is something that happens in households of all types, regardless of the choice of school.
I guess my larger point is that many of the things that are embraced by those who unschool are also done by families who do go with the more conventional school route. That includes travel, reading, etc. I can see how in some cases (especially at an earlier age) unschooling could work well for some kids, but at the same time I sometimes feel that there is sometimes an assumption being made that the children who do go to school somehow switch off the learning once the school day ends.
Thanks you for your long answer but you missed my point which I was trying avoid being blunt about.
Maybe the point needs to be more specific.
When it comes time for the un schooled student to take a job outside the home, or to go to college, and it turned out that they only have a knowledge base on what interested them, but not on what they need to get into Harvard, what happens?
Z
If the child is interested in going to Harvard, then they will make sure that they have the prerequisites done. No one NEEDS to get into Harvard, and most people don't. It's the same as kids who go to high school... some try really hard and make the most of it, while others slack off. If a homeschooled/unschooled teen wants to pursue higher education, there are plenty of universities for them to choose from (including Harvard!). They would need to look up the requirements and fulfill them. If the kid is not interested in doing that, then he's obviously not heart-and-soul vested in going to Harvard!
If the child is interested in going to Harvard, then they will make sure that they have the prerequisites done. No one NEEDS to get into Harvard, and most people don't. It's the same as kids who go to high school... some try really hard and make the most of it, while others slack off. If a homeschooled/unschooled teen wants to pursue higher education, there are plenty of universities for them to choose from (including Harvard!). They would need to look up the requirements and fulfill them. If the kid is not interested in doing that, then he's obviously not heart-and-soul vested in going to Harvard!
^^^THIS^^^ Also, someone said it before but it bears repeating. Some universities actively seek out HS/US. My daughter will attend Webster U this fall, and though she's been back in school for this past almost 3 years, we asked if the HS background would be a problem and they said no. Webster has a more liberal way of having them get their prerequisites and my daughter was delighted to find that she will never need to take another math class in her life if she doesn't want to. And all the French she desires. Oh joy. In short, this uni will fall right in with her learning style.
I haven't wanted to wade into the rest of this, but I am highly skeptical of the claim (which seems to often be made by both unschoolers and homeschoolers) that those kids are more interested in reading than other kids. I think it comes down to family, as well to individual personalities of the kids. From a pure numbers standpoint I'm sure that the HS/US kids read more than the "average" kid in a more traditional classroom, but that's a skewed sample. In any case, I haven't seen anything in my own life or observations to suggest that this is the case. I think the "nerd" fear factor is overblown, and think that exposing children to books and to the fun of reading is something that happens in households of all types, regardless of the choice of school.
I guess my larger point is that many of the things that are embraced by those who unschool are also done by families who do go with the more conventional school route. That includes travel, reading, etc. I can see how in some cases (especially at an earlier age) unschooling could work well for some kids, but at the same time I sometimes feel that there is sometimes an assumption being made that the children who do go to school somehow switch off the learning once the school day ends.
Of course it's a skewed sample. Of those who choose to HS/US responsibly, there probably is more of a focus on learning, which would be there anyway, even if the kids went to public. I believe my girls would still love to read even if they had never HS, but we'll never know for sure. But remember, I work in the schools also, and the majority of the students hate to read. It's an underprivileged school though so don't know but that it has a lot to do with it.
Here's another thought though: I came from an educated family--my father was a professor and mother a nurse. LD and AD/HD also common in this family and my brother and I both have AD/HD and my brother has LD also. Of course my bro always hated to read, but as he grew up and got into a field that he loves, he finds himself reading for info frequently. How much happier would he have been if he'd been learning what he loved all along rather than having teachers in school shaking their heads over his apparent laziness? We'll never know. He might not have read much, but I'm quite sure he would have been out in the garage tinkering with mechanical objects and been able to get into the same career he's now in, but thru an alternative pathway.
One thing is for sure: ever since high school I've been dreaming of alternative education methods.
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Here are some ideas I came up with. First of all though, I'll say that any student learning calculus at home is going to be very self-motivated and no school forces kids to learn it--not even universities, unless the kid is going into a field that requires it. So, here is my list:
Mine were nothing like that.
And all the French she desires. Oh joy. In short, this uni will fall right in with her learning style.
