Homeschool is 30 TIMES more effective then public school.
That is a pretty outrageous statement.
Here I why I say so. In the book "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn. On page 145 he finds that how interested the students were in the passage was thirty times more important that how "readable" the passage was.
How can we test this? Well, how long was it before you or your children started public school before the answer to the question, "What did you do today in school?" was "Nothing." Months, weeks, days?
Did you ever ask the question, "Is this going to be on the test?" You ask that question to know if you can go off somewhere else in your imagination for a while.
Is school boring? Of course it is. Few teachers can find the common interests of 20-30 children and link it to the lesson. It is easier in classes like band or art because the students in those classes are interested in those subjects, oh wait they've been cancelled for more "teaching" time.
Is "Punished by Rewards" the only place that says this? No, another place is "Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience." He is not interested in education as such. The author was just looking for why some people excel and others don't doing the same task. Flow is found in a balance between challenge and skill otherwise known as being "in the zone". An example of flow, have you ever read a good book, a real page-turner, you start after dinner and the next thing you know you are closing the back cover and its 2 in the morning. Or playing basketball and you are hitting most every shot. That's flow.
It comes down to this, if you are interested in doing something it is much easier to do then not.
One more place, "The Design of Everyday Things" this is a book on how the way things are designed effects how we use them. He talks about taught helplessness, You are in a situation like math class where it keeps moving forward at a relentless pace and if you miss a simple point you are completely lost because it is expected that you have mastered everything that has come before. So you end up with arithmaphobia.
Even if Alfie is off by a factor of 10, I will still do a 3 times better job of teaching my children then any teacher will.
Is there any school district that doesn't say that students do better with parental involvement? Mainly because parents are interested in their child's success like no one else. Again if you are interested you will retain 30 times more information then otherwise.
If I am already interested with what my child is doing at school then why can't I just take over the whole thing and do it at home where I can make sure my child is learning things that are linked to her interests?
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Online Homeschool Convention is open
There are a lot of great posts in this convention, including my own.
Get out there and learn something.
Get out there and learn something.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Teach the whole child.
Math has a long history and it is tied into business and government and science. No one can teach effectively to just one part, it has to be a whole, it makes more sense when you know what it is good for and how it is used in real life. Teach the whole child.
The most powerful way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. At first have your child teach you, you need to make sure he has completely understood the foundational material. Find someone to be a study buddy, they can teach each other how to do the material. If you cannot find a real study buddy use a teddy bear or rubber ducky or cardboard cutout or a plant to talk to, the talking to is important. I know that sounds weird but it does work and is very effective I have used it to work through problems that were stumping me.
Keep a learning journal. Write down what you have taught and learned today and what you think about it. This also comes in very handy if someone challenges what you teach your children. A record written in your and their own hand is powerful evidence and further supports the memory the lessons.
Part of teaching the whole child is to teach them how to work. Math is mainly Knowledge Work, work of the brain. But they also need to know the physical side as well. Chores are the simplest way of doing it. Provide them with a choice of chores to do, if your children are anything like mine they will gravitate toward certain chores rather then others. Suit the chores to the abilities of your children their innate talents and physical and mental maturity, you know them far better then any stranger ever will.
At first the chores will get done slower then if you would have done them but speed is not the issue the issue is are the children learning the benefits of work and asking the question "Is this the fastest, cheapest, easiest way of doing this?" "There must be a better way!" is the engineers rallying cry.
The most powerful way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. At first have your child teach you, you need to make sure he has completely understood the foundational material. Find someone to be a study buddy, they can teach each other how to do the material. If you cannot find a real study buddy use a teddy bear or rubber ducky or cardboard cutout or a plant to talk to, the talking to is important. I know that sounds weird but it does work and is very effective I have used it to work through problems that were stumping me.
Keep a learning journal. Write down what you have taught and learned today and what you think about it. This also comes in very handy if someone challenges what you teach your children. A record written in your and their own hand is powerful evidence and further supports the memory the lessons.
Part of teaching the whole child is to teach them how to work. Math is mainly Knowledge Work, work of the brain. But they also need to know the physical side as well. Chores are the simplest way of doing it. Provide them with a choice of chores to do, if your children are anything like mine they will gravitate toward certain chores rather then others. Suit the chores to the abilities of your children their innate talents and physical and mental maturity, you know them far better then any stranger ever will.
At first the chores will get done slower then if you would have done them but speed is not the issue the issue is are the children learning the benefits of work and asking the question "Is this the fastest, cheapest, easiest way of doing this?" "There must be a better way!" is the engineers rallying cry.
Don't be fooled by numerical legerdemain
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Benjamin Disraeli
"Math is hard." as Barbie used to say. Math isn't hard. English is much harder then math and teaching english to your children is easy. You do it without even thinking about it.
Too often in public schools the way they teach math ends up with students knowing less math at the end of class then when they came in. It is called Taught Helplessness.
It was brought home to me when I was reading a book quite unrelated to mathematics, "The Design of Everyday Things" It is a book on User Interface Design or the study of how people and machines interact. He talks about something he ran into quite be accident and only as an aside.
There are two places he noticed that people have big problems: Computers and mathematics. computers used to be really cryptic and hard to use, so hard many people taught themselves how to not use the computer, because it always told them they were wrong and if you do that enough times they believe it.
Public schools teach math so badly that student taught to be helpless when it comes to that subject. Math becomes magic to them. Tutoring a student that has a textbook that has problems that make no sense, makes it very hard for them to understand the concept. All they really know is, "I did it wrong therefore I am stupid."
If you mention numbers or equations then their minds go blank and static fills their ears. It is like they become allergic to numbers. Arithmophobia is what is it called. They are afraid of numbers. Balancing a checkbook is impossible for them.
Then the media comes on with their polls. Have you ever noticed that all their polls have an error of +/-3%. You cannot specify the error rate beforehand, no matter how hard you try, reality gets in the way. A 3% error is basically a perfect score, that just doesn't happen in the real world, I would expect the error to jump around a lot, closer to 10% with 3% only being seen occasionally. My wife worked at a place doing telephone surveys, let me tell you they were in no way getting 3% error rates.
How easy is it influence someone when they hear something along the lines of : "Americans approve of whatever because 49 per_pshshshauairere_ (static fills their minds as the anchor starts talking about numbers and numbers pop up on the screen)? Pretty easy don't you think.
Don't let yourself or your children be fooled by numerical legerdemain Math is a powerful, powerful tool that lets you break through junk science.
Benjamin Disraeli
"Math is hard." as Barbie used to say. Math isn't hard. English is much harder then math and teaching english to your children is easy. You do it without even thinking about it.
Too often in public schools the way they teach math ends up with students knowing less math at the end of class then when they came in. It is called Taught Helplessness.
It was brought home to me when I was reading a book quite unrelated to mathematics, "The Design of Everyday Things" It is a book on User Interface Design or the study of how people and machines interact. He talks about something he ran into quite be accident and only as an aside.
There are two places he noticed that people have big problems: Computers and mathematics. computers used to be really cryptic and hard to use, so hard many people taught themselves how to not use the computer, because it always told them they were wrong and if you do that enough times they believe it.
Public schools teach math so badly that student taught to be helpless when it comes to that subject. Math becomes magic to them. Tutoring a student that has a textbook that has problems that make no sense, makes it very hard for them to understand the concept. All they really know is, "I did it wrong therefore I am stupid."
If you mention numbers or equations then their minds go blank and static fills their ears. It is like they become allergic to numbers. Arithmophobia is what is it called. They are afraid of numbers. Balancing a checkbook is impossible for them.
Then the media comes on with their polls. Have you ever noticed that all their polls have an error of +/-3%. You cannot specify the error rate beforehand, no matter how hard you try, reality gets in the way. A 3% error is basically a perfect score, that just doesn't happen in the real world, I would expect the error to jump around a lot, closer to 10% with 3% only being seen occasionally. My wife worked at a place doing telephone surveys, let me tell you they were in no way getting 3% error rates.
How easy is it influence someone when they hear something along the lines of : "Americans approve of whatever because 49 per_pshshshauairere_ (static fills their minds as the anchor starts talking about numbers and numbers pop up on the screen)? Pretty easy don't you think.
Don't let yourself or your children be fooled by numerical legerdemain Math is a powerful, powerful tool that lets you break through junk science.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Math is one of the success skills.
There are only a few skills that appear necessary for success. They appear to be: reading, writing, mathematics, fitness, problem solving, interpersonal, and face & name memory.
I am going to focus on mathematics.
Mathematics is a very badly taught skill in schools, that was really brought home to me when I was reading "The Design of Everyday Things" where Norman talks about Learned Helplessness. Students actually end up knowing less math coming out of school then when they went in. They learn to become dependent on the teacher for explanations. This is very bad in my eyes.
I have tutored many people in math and other subjects plenty of times, starting in high school. If you count other students cheating off my tests, it goes all the way back to the 1970's when I was in elementary school:)
Math is simply a language. And there is an important thing you have to learn first. Numbers are stand-ins for actual quantities. 1 is the same as *, ** is the same as 2, and so on.
Numbers are just an abstraction to make writing numbers a lot faster and easier. We could make our numbers be anything at all. Many early number systems, such as Greek and Hebrew just used letters to represent numbers, but unlike how we use letters to represent unknown quantities in algebra, they were constants. It would be similar to us saying a=1, b=2, c=3, and so on.
Just by counting things I've been able to teach my 2 year-old daughter to count.
Addition is straightforward enough. a group of ** and a group of **** put together are ******. but that would be a real pain to do the national budget with. so we use numbers instead of tally marks. The Roman numerals are little more then tally marks and doing calculations in that system is very hard.
So ** added to *** are *****, or 2 and 3 are 5, or 2+3=5. It is easy to see that the last is very easy to write. If you are starting to teach a young child to do math then start with physical quantities: blocks, pennies, pens or other small easy to move things. I would save candy for subtraction.
Subtraction is much the same. Though you have to make sure that at first you only subtract smaller quantities from larger quantities. Once they are familiar with that concept you'll see something interesting happen. They'll ask you, "What happens if we subtract a larger number from a smaller number?" Then you know they are ready for introducing negative numbers. You don't need to introduce number lines or anything like that. Number lines are important later, but so much later so learning them now doesn't really help. Negative numbers are just that negative. They'll deal with them just fine.
Math is a language. 1+1=2 because we defined it that way. Children learn to speak because we use words around them, they imitate us and we correct them. We don't even have to think about doing it. Math is a little more difficult for us to teach because we tend not to use it explicitly. We have to change, but it is worth it to help our children be successful.
I am going to focus on mathematics.
Mathematics is a very badly taught skill in schools, that was really brought home to me when I was reading "The Design of Everyday Things" where Norman talks about Learned Helplessness. Students actually end up knowing less math coming out of school then when they went in. They learn to become dependent on the teacher for explanations. This is very bad in my eyes.
I have tutored many people in math and other subjects plenty of times, starting in high school. If you count other students cheating off my tests, it goes all the way back to the 1970's when I was in elementary school:)
Math is simply a language. And there is an important thing you have to learn first. Numbers are stand-ins for actual quantities. 1 is the same as *, ** is the same as 2, and so on.
Numbers are just an abstraction to make writing numbers a lot faster and easier. We could make our numbers be anything at all. Many early number systems, such as Greek and Hebrew just used letters to represent numbers, but unlike how we use letters to represent unknown quantities in algebra, they were constants. It would be similar to us saying a=1, b=2, c=3, and so on.
Just by counting things I've been able to teach my 2 year-old daughter to count.
Addition is straightforward enough. a group of ** and a group of **** put together are ******. but that would be a real pain to do the national budget with. so we use numbers instead of tally marks. The Roman numerals are little more then tally marks and doing calculations in that system is very hard.
So ** added to *** are *****, or 2 and 3 are 5, or 2+3=5. It is easy to see that the last is very easy to write. If you are starting to teach a young child to do math then start with physical quantities: blocks, pennies, pens or other small easy to move things. I would save candy for subtraction.
Subtraction is much the same. Though you have to make sure that at first you only subtract smaller quantities from larger quantities. Once they are familiar with that concept you'll see something interesting happen. They'll ask you, "What happens if we subtract a larger number from a smaller number?" Then you know they are ready for introducing negative numbers. You don't need to introduce number lines or anything like that. Number lines are important later, but so much later so learning them now doesn't really help. Negative numbers are just that negative. They'll deal with them just fine.
Math is a language. 1+1=2 because we defined it that way. Children learn to speak because we use words around them, they imitate us and we correct them. We don't even have to think about doing it. Math is a little more difficult for us to teach because we tend not to use it explicitly. We have to change, but it is worth it to help our children be successful.
Monday, April 18, 2005
What we study so our children have the right to study good things
In 1780 Massachusetts patriot John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, outlining his vision of how American culture might evolve. ''I must study politics and war," he prophesied, so ''that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." They will add to their studies geography, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, he continued, so that their children may enjoy the ''right to study painting, poetry, music . . . "
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/10/why_literature_matters?pg=full
That is a great quote but, why is it worth sending my child to school if all the teachers quit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46379-2005Apr12.html
An article in my local paper from the local school administration was encouraging parents and students to create a self-actualized education, "... to be the loudest chick in the nest" to get the best education you can.
If you are going to "self-actualize" your education you might as well homeschool, where you actually can.
Our children can be so much more, it is time to take them back from the schools and get to teaching them.
I am studying education and learning and history so I can teach my children so they can study language, music and art.
What Do You Want Your Children to Know and What Skills Do You Want Them to Have When They are 18-years-old?
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert Heinlein
That is the fundamental question you are facing in the education of your children, and it doesn't matter if your child is in public school, private school or home school.
No matter the answers to that question you will have to take action to make sure your children have that knowledge and those skill, because no one loves or cares more about your children then you do.
You have two things to do:
Find and nourish your children's innate talents.
Impart the life skills necessary so your children can life a happy life and support their talents.
Everyone has been gifted with at least one talent that they can use to enrich everyones life with. As a parent your job is to find those talents and help your children develop them to the highest level they can.
What talents do your children have? I have no idea but just be observant, provide a wide range of activities, take note of your children's favorite activities in your learning journal and you will start seeing patterns emerge. The things your children are good at will be related to their talents.
Many talented people become complacent about their talent, since it comes so easy to them they don't work to improve. Help them to strive for perfection.
You May Only Be One Or Two Skills Away From Success.
Having a talent is not enough, they also have to a good balance of life-skills. There are many stories in the news of highly paid professional athletes who have no money management skills and end up in debt because they don't understand that their careers will end sooner rather then later.
I have met many young adults lately that are missing basic life skills, Sure, they can read—slowly, and write—with the help of a spelling and grammar checker. Their cooking skills top out at scrambled eggs and toast, and getting common stains out of clothes is a stumper. But cleaning the bathroom, and changing the oil in the car is something completely new to them. Balancing the checkbook is a process they don't understand at all. Maybe they have all lead sheltered lives, but I want my children to be able to function in day to day life.
Learning most skills is not all that hard: to pick up a new skill and get pretty good at it takes about 100 hours, to become expert in a skill all it takes is practice about 1000 hours of practice. To master a skill takes about 5000 hours.
My short list of skills for my children:
Literate: She should be able to read and write and get her point across.
Numerate: She should be able to balance her checkbook, and see how physics plays a major role in everyday life.
Articulate: She should be able to talk to people: alone or in front of a group and be understood.
Fitness: She should be able to take care of her body.
Homemaking skills: She should be able to take care of her clothes, house, car and cook meals.
Goal-setting skills: She should be able to set and achieve goals.
Time-management skills: She should be able to manage her time and energy effectively.
Memory skills: She should be able to remember names and faces.
In 1780 Massachusetts patriot John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, outlining his vision of how American culture might evolve. ''I must study politics and war," he prophesied, so ''that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." They will add to their studies geography, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, he continued, so that their children may enjoy the ''right to study painting, poetry, music . . . "
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/10/why_literature_matters?pg=full
That is a great quote but, why is it worth sending my child to school if all the teachers quit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46379-2005Apr12.html
An article in my local paper from the local school administration was encouraging parents and students to create a self-actualized education, "... to be the loudest chick in the nest" to get the best education you can.
If you are going to "self-actualize" your education you might as well homeschool, where you actually can.
Our children can be so much more, it is time to take them back from the schools and get to teaching them.
I am studying education and learning and history so I can teach my children so they can study language, music and art.
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