tasmlab Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 Hi FDR friends! Here's a draft of my first unschooling/homeschooling monthly plan for my eight-year-old daughter. I'm brand new to this and my wife and I are fighting pangs to get too schooly at home. Let me know if you think this is too structured, too vague, concerns, additions, etc. It's being deployed on Monday. This is essentially a list of activities to be completed each month. It feels open to me but should only take about 1/8 the time going to school full time would take, so there is still lots of free/self directed time. My five year old's is much less. Thanks in advance! _____________________________________ Adie’s recommended minimum monthly homeschool activities (draft) Month ______________________________________ Grade 3. Reading and writing: 1 fiction book, Adie’s choice, age appropriate (continually more advanced) 1 Non-fiction book (science, history, tutorial, geography, biography etc.), Adie’s choice For each book, a scripted Youtube report to be created, 2-4 minutes in length. To be posted to Adie’s website in video and text form. Fiction report can be speech/talking head. Non-fiction report should include photos/video/diagrams or other explanatory images. Parents to recommend literature as appropriate to sub self selection now and then Note: Library trips or Amazon used bookstore needed Writing: Ongoing or multiple fiction or non-fiction projects of Adie’s choosing (e.g., Gilbert’s diary, short stories, other report). Adie’s discretion Progress shown over time Scripted video production counts Published online at Adie’s website Spelling and grammar: Spelling and grammar book lessons as appropriate Spelling and grammar apps on computer. Math: Four lessons per month from somewhere like: Khan Academy Brainpop Itunes U IXL Sub mathbook progress as applicable. More is dandy Science and social studies: Two video lectures/lessons/documentaries per month Adie chosen and parent recommended. Half page written review (typed) for web site Youtube review OK Can sub videos for books or articles (Note: Mom and dad to create list of good sources/sites) Art and music: Consider lessons in either/or Explore at home Physical activities: Multiple lessons/clubs to be attended (horseback riding, karate, soccer, track, gymnastics, swim team, etc.) To be signed up with mom Home economics: Cooking, weekly Chores, weekly Personal finance, as needed Family educational field trips: At least one (hopefully more) trip to location to learn something (nature center, museum, class etc.) Document through half page write up or video Self directed projects: Any other hobbies encouraged and/but we’ll need to remember to write about them, photograph outcomes or create youtubes to document progress. Could include pet owning (hamster), collecting, sewing, webpage, writing, crafts, etc. Other group events: TBD Bible Studies and corporeal punishment 10 hours bible study per day including weekends Mandatory spankings for every mistake, daily. _________________________
Wesley Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 recommended minimum I would say that this seems to be a contradiction in terms. Is it recommended or minimum? What did she say about this list? Does she want to take some things away and add other things? I think you should maybe start with this, tell her that everything is optional, and negotiate what she wants to get done. Then tell her she can renegotiate at the start of any month if she changes what she likes or what she wants to do. If she is fine, then the list can just carry over. I could make a lot of things as to what I would want to learn or what I think others should learn, but her input is the most important piece that you want to have.
tasmlab Posted January 3, 2014 Author Posted January 3, 2014 Thanks self-excavator! Yes, we're going to solicit her input and it won't be rigid. My thought is that this will be a starting point as we take her from the lock down of public school to pointing to some of the things she can do with minimal instructions. Honestly, I'm hoping something grabs her and she runs with it. We also have to at least have a paper trail for the state it seems, so some of the structure will also be theatre for administrators.
powersquash Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 I hope the bible study/corporeal punishment is a joke or at least let the bible count as the fiction book. How would the month long course work out /day or /week? Would she be forced to do math on Mondays and what happens when she doesn't complete the coursework?
Lians Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 Things should be fine as long as you continuously negotiate and refine the list. Make sure she's clear on the state-imposed limitations as well. Letting her plan and design her curriculum (with your input) could be a fantastic lesson in itself. Right now, your approach is centred around disciplines, not activities. This is how we are taught in school, but that's not how real-life works. The ability to research and acquire skills on demand is foundational to all competitive free market industries that I've seen (particularly in the management and leadership roles). This means that you're faced with a task and you need to figure out how to accomplish it. Do I need maths? Do I need programming? Do I need artistic skills like composition and lighting? Your approach can also be a little more integrated in terms of knowledge. From what I've observed, there's a slow move away from the do one thing and do it really well of the past century to a more Renaissance-like do a few things well and learn how to incorporate them. For example, what if she reads a work of fiction and decides to interpret it with a drawing? This activity alone can improve both her artistic and analytic thinking by teaching her how to visualize and interpret information, understand metaphors and construct images. All of this in addition to the obvious reading and drawing. My starting point when I'm thinking about education is identifying the principles that underlie schooling and reversing them: Discipline-based <-> Activity-based Restricted time flow <-> Unrestricted time flow Directed <-> Self-directed Disconnected skill acquisition <-> Integrated skills acquisition ... Balancing both sides can be quite challenge. This is why you need the continuous input of your daughter to figure out what works and what doesn't.
tasmlab Posted January 3, 2014 Author Posted January 3, 2014 recommended minimum I would say that this seems to be a contradiction in terms. Is it recommended or minimum? I meant both, as in "I recommend we try at least this much in a month to start." I hope the bible study/corporeal punishment is a joke or at least let the bible count as the fiction book. How would the month long course work out /day or /week? Would she be forced to do math on Mondays and what happens when she doesn't complete the coursework? Yea, the bible study and spankings were a joke just for the FDR crowd. My idea for the first month was to see if she could finish by the end of the month as a goal. If she wanted to do her math all in one day, on the last day of the month that would be fine. If she didn't complete it then we'd explore why and see if we wanted to do something different. Things should be fine as long as you continuously negotiate and refine the list. Make sure she's clear on the state-imposed limitations as well. Letting her plan and design her curriculum (with your input) could be a fantastic lesson in itself. Right now, your approach is centred around disciplines, not activities. This is how we are taught in school, but that's not how real-life works. The ability to research and acquire skills on demand is foundational to all competitive free market industries that I've seen (particularly in the management and leadership roles). This means that you're faced with a task and you need to figure out how to accomplish it. Do I need maths? Do I need programming? Do I need artistic skills like composition and lighting? Your approach can also be a little more integrated in terms of knowledge. From what I've observed, there's a slow move away from the do one thing and do it really well of the past century to a more Renaissance-like do a few things well and learn how to incorporate them. For example, what if she reads a work of fiction and decides to interpret it with a drawing? This activity alone can improve both her artistic and analytic thinking by teaching her how to visualize and interpret information, understand metaphors and construct images. All of this in addition to the obvious reading and drawing. My starting point when I'm thinking about education is identifying the principles that underlie schooling and reversing them: Discipline-based <-> Activity-based Restricted time flow <-> Unrestricted time flow Directed <-> Self-directed Disconnected skill acquisition <-> Integrated skills acquisition ... Balancing both sides can be quite challenge. This is why you need the continuous input of your daughter to figure out what works and what doesn't. Great points, Lians. You make a good point about disciplines vs. activities and the need to explain the state obligations. According to law we have to cover reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. The main directive (bad term, perhaps) is to read or watch video and than express a reaction back with the subject matter being her choosing. This still may be too structured. And I haven't decided how much math we'll grudge through either. I guess it depends on if she likes it or not. It was a strong subject in PS. Thanks all (so far) for your thoughts!
Lians Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 Yeah, focusing on disciplines puts too much emphasis on knowledge as a goal, not a means to an end. If you can teach your daughter how to be good at learning, she can digest any book or article you throw her way. What they call maths in school and most textbooks is little more than symbolic manipulation and memorization, which is a fine way of putting someone to sleep. Mathematical thinking is a different matter altogether. I haven't looked into beginner-level maths books, so I can't make any recommendations. I'll leave you with this story though: Judging Books by Their Covers - Richard Feynman
tasmlab Posted January 3, 2014 Author Posted January 3, 2014 Agreed that elementary math is as tedious as it comes, mostly memorizing computations (arithmetic) with little mathematic thought. Grace Llewlyn recommends "Mr. Anno's" book which are logic/math-based stories and puzzles that have nothing to do with memorizing tables but encourage mathematical thinking. I have it on order, haven't seen it yet, and don't know much about it.
ribuck Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 I'm uncomfortable about the write-ups, the reports, the reviews. To me, a big advantage of home schooling is that the child spends their time exploring the world; discovering and learning as they go. To be forced to regurgitate this on paper is just wasting their childhood. Every minute spent proving that they learned something, is a minute not spent learning other stuff. Also, I feel it's too formal. A child's mind is like a sponge, soaking up all that they are exposed to. You can go a long way just by being available to discuss with the child what is going on. Do interesting stuff, and chat about it. I would definitely seize every opportunity to go places. For example, I would visit the library for all of the reading, rather than ordering books over the internet. Going out will help with their social development, and let them see how the world works. Most children love seeing how the librarian scans the books, stamps the due date in them, etc. And most librarians (in my experience) are not too rushed and are happy to talk to a child about books. We were lucky that our library had a weekly story reading just for the children. It gave me a chance to get some shopping done, after which my kids were just bursting to tell me about the book, and about the other people who where there, etc. I would not even have spelling and grammar "lessons". You can just teach these things as and when they crop up while the child is doing stuff that interests them and that they care about.
ThomasDoubts Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 My two cents: "Adie, what would you like to be able to do that you can't do right now?"... "Ok, here's how I can help you." Let her set her own goals, and reading, writing, math, science, history, economics, research, etc. will become obstacles to overcome in pursuit of some goal, rather than ends in and of themselves. A well rounded education is important because it allows you to do many things. I would say your job is to introduce and cultivate diverse interests and she'll pursue them because she wants to. If she enjoys cooking, for example, you can show how fractions, measurements, chemistry, biology, etc. are useful in cooking a great meal. You can introduce the scientific method by having cooking "experiments," where you have a control sample, and a few experimental samples where you test a specific independent variable (amount of sugar, time cooked, etc.) I would shy away from teaching all these things because she'll need them. Let her discover that she needs them in order to acheive a goal. This, I think, would provide greater enthusiasm, and ultimately, better learning. That said, I wouldn't be terribly concerned with a bit of structure, if for no other reason than to satisfy the state. If she begins to resists your program, remember that your program needs to change, not her behavior. She's the teacher, you're the student. Great job, she's a lucky lucky child!
powersquash Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 There are a lot of excellent ideas on here. I especially enjoy the idea of setting a goal of whatever the child wants to be able to do and showing the different learning opportunities involved in achieving the goal. Has anyone already been through this type of parenting/teaching? I'd love to hear about what others have had success doing.
ribuck Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 I wouldn't be terribly concerned with a bit of structure, if for no other reason than to satisfy the state. OK, but don't think that this structure has anything to do with unschooling. It's a penalty levied by the state.
LanceD Posted January 4, 2014 Posted January 4, 2014 I don't understand, why are you unschooling and then creating a school environment at home with a curriculum and minimum standards? It appears you are falling into the trap that many of us unschooling parents fall into and trying to replace a state run school with a parent run school. When what many of us have come to realize is that you need to replace the state run school with no school at all. When we first started home schooling we purchased a curriculum. It had lesson plans, a schedule, a teacher to review lessons, and even had tests to track progress. However this simply created an adversarial relationship between us and our son. Instead of having fun guiding him through learning all the things he is interested in we were put into a situation where we were having to coerce him into doing lessons he had no interest in. This caused a lot of misery in the household and did not go very well with peaceful parenting, because not only does cercion go against peaceful parenting, but in order to gain compliance you have to employ punishments and other forms of "discipline" and move even further away from peaceful parenting! If a child does not want to learn something they will not, and trying to force them too just results in you becoming a shitty person and doing things that only serve to hurt your child. We quickly realized the errors in our ways and my wife started doing research into a better method. This led her to interesting bloggers on Facebook, such as "The Libertarian Homeschooler" and "Free Your Kids", and plenty of other sources for useful information and experiences. We then moved towards a method that from the outside would appear to be no method at all as we don't really do any formal teaching unless it's something he specifically asks to learn about. Instead of schooling he just spends the days doing whatever it is he wants to do and as his parents we attempt to find opportunities for learning in daily life. Example, right this very moment Drake is playing Skylanders Swap Force on my Playstation. I'm really impressed by how good he is getting at solving the puzzles in the game and really happy I bought it because not only does he think it's the most fun thing ever but the game has created many opportunities for learning. One of the big ones is reading, my son HATES reading. He hates it like I hate income taxes, yet he loves this game and there is plenty of ways being able to read helps him in this game. This incentive is actually serving to make him interested in reading and making him happy to do it! And after all of the horrible experiences we all had back when we thought we needed to force him to learn to read on a schedule we determined, it's truly thrilling to see him just doing this stuff on his own. Another example is the day my son looked at a map of the the planet Earth and said that it was a circle. This was true that it looked like a circle on the map, but as we know the Earth is a sphere. I took this opportunity to first teach my son what a sphere is, and attempted to teach him the difference between 2D shapes and 3D shapes. He had recently watched an episode of The Magic School Bus that taught him about stars, so he started to ask other questions related to the Solar System. So we ended up finding every sphere in the house and setting up a makeshift solar system in the living room, complete with me running around in circles trying to teach him about the way the planets orbit the sun. With all the interest he showed we then planned a trip to the planetarium where he got to learn even more about everything relating to space and the universe. When I see your lesson plan it makes me think about our experiences with our son and wonder, "would we be better off with defined lessons?" amd "would the great experiences we have had where he learned X have happened had we followed a lesson plan?". Experience shows me that many, if not all, of the really positive learning experiences would not have happened had we attempted to coerce him into learning these things when we wanted him too. "Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind" -Plato
MysterionMuffles Posted January 6, 2014 Posted January 6, 2014 That sounds like a lot of stuff already...why not just ask her what she's interested in and pursue that more? Unless you were being ironic. Sorry if this post sounds insensitive, just skimmed through the thread at 8:30am without having gone to bed yet! Unless you're forced by the State to meet those standards and they will check on you regularly, then mah bad! EDIT: ok so I actually read it all after posting hastily post haste I guess what I said would only be valid and easily applicable if you weren't be hovered over by the state. That sucks, but it's great that you're open to new suggestions as there have been really great ones provided by Lians. Either way though, good stuff on making the choice to homeschool your kids. Was the Youtube video recording your idea as a form of reporting her findings?
tasmlab Posted January 6, 2014 Author Posted January 6, 2014 Hi everyone, thanks again for your review! As you know, this isn't a theoretical forum discussion. Three real live kids are at stake! I may reflect on specific comments, but here's what I'm taking at a high level: Put my daughter in the drivers seat: Have my daughter come up what she wants to do, be sure it is a conversation and put her in charge. Got it! That was my intention although it doesn't come across in the document. She'll still need my help and I should introduce her to options, but, again, not make it a tops-down directive of any sort. Still WAY to schooly: We've come a long way in the past four weeks since we've made the decision (The Calvert catalog already long ago trashed) but I should still throw this much structure out the window and not try to replicate school at home. Screw the state: Some mixed notions on what we'll have to demonstrate to the state, and I'm still not completely sure how closely they will audit. We do have to keep documentation and prove progress. This said, I can fake my way through government paperwork as well as anybody and what the state wants shouldn't be driving actual knowledge attainment. _________________________________________________
Lians Posted January 6, 2014 Posted January 6, 2014 Still WAY to schooly: We've come a long way in the past four weeks since we've made the decision (The Calvert catalog already long ago trashed) but I should still throw this much structure out the window and not try to replicate school at home. This may not be all that helpful but I've got a few thoughts on the notion of educational structure. It's one of those terms that only exists in state-land. Structure in education is a euphemism for an indoctrination template. A template that you can shove down children's throats until they sing songs of their masters As is usual with violence, structure signifies the opposite of what it claims to represent. You cripple children until they're so incapable of acquiring knowledge on their down that they have to rely on someone else to tell them what to do. Give me a recipe by which I can live my life, master! Structure my ass. Do engineers design the same bridge over different terrains? Do bridges lack structural integrity because their design is driven by the specifications of a particular environment? The principles of engineering remain the same and that's all that matters. Don't sweat the lack of structure. Be proud of it.
tasmlab Posted January 6, 2014 Author Posted January 6, 2014 I'm uncomfortable about the write-ups, the reports, the reviews. To me, a big advantage of home schooling is that the child spends their time exploring the world; discovering and learning as they go. To be forced to regurgitate this on paper is just wasting their childhood. Every minute spent proving that they learned something, is a minute not spent learning other stuff. I would not even have spelling and grammar "lessons". You can just teach these things as and when they crop up while the child is doing stuff that interests them and that they care about. My idea behind the write-ups is to encourage active literacy i.e., encourage writing skills. I will not make them mandatory nor universal but will instead recommend that she records how she wishes. We'll have to do documentation of some sort for state reporting, but I think you are right that the plan has too much and seems dictated/positioned to make too much needless and probably crappy busy work. The spelling and grammar was a reaction to the curriculum request the state-approved homeschooling association requested. I sort of soured when I saw it. I personally make a pretty good living as a professional writer and I didn't really learn grammar rules in depth until I was 30. I'll probably buy a book or two to make the association happy, offer them if she wants them, and then just provide correction or direction as needed. She doesn't need to do weekly lessons. When we first started home schooling we purchased a curriculum. It had lesson plans, a schedule, a teacher to review lessons, and even had tests to track progress. However this simply created an adversarial relationship between us and our son. Instead of having fun guiding him through learning all the things he is interested in we were put into a situation where we were having to coerce him into doing lessons he had no interest in. .... Hi LanceD, I've heard variations on this story over and over the more I read. It's just taking me a long time to get my head around going from the scramble to get the kids on the bus for public school to embrace self-directed learning. I really appreciate your story. I'm going to send it to my wife. As an aside, we just ordered Skylanders swap force for my five year old son. Glad to hear that it was fun. Reading has been a mix for him, as we play lots of reading video games (Legend of Zelda series in particular). He gets frustrated that he can't read at times but then doesn't necessarily want to learn. My five year ols Was the Youtube video recording your idea as a form of reporting her findings? She watches a lot of youtube videos (this month is a lot of the minecraft guys) and wanted to create her own a few months ago. We filmed it but couldn't get the footage to load on the computer (this is a longer, boring story), but now I'm investing in getting her and her brother set up to do video production. They are both really excited. For me, I think it would be a great skill to have in our era, even vocationally. And I thought it would be a good way to make the state recording compliance stuff more valuable. Ron Paul also recommends it in his homeschooling book to teach public speaking and technology.
LanceD Posted January 7, 2014 Posted January 7, 2014 I'm really happy to see that you are obviously interested in doing what is best for your children. They are extremely lucky to have you and your wife as parents. As an aside isn't it sad that in our modern "progressive" society parents who actually put the needs of their children ahead of their own is something that needs to be praised and isn't just expected as the norm? Anyways, the number one suggestion me and my wife have, I actually did talk to her about this, is to take some time to decompresses before you really jump in. Your children aren't going to be harmed by not having any formal lessons for a while and there will be a necessary adjustment period as everyone gets used to the changes. So just take a break and be with your children. Give them their new freedom and see what they do with it on their own. You'll get to know them better as people, your bond will grow and I think you will quickly see how much they learn by just living life alongside a parent who cares enough to talk to them and answer questions. Don't try and rush them into an educated adulthood. They are only children for so long, why waste that valuable time on lesson plans?
PatrickC Posted January 7, 2014 Posted January 7, 2014 Firstly I want to say this is a great start Tasmlab. Not least because I know this shit is all new to you. So congrats for making a swell effort. Lians touched on a useful point. That activities are often more productive than discpline based study. One of the things the Sudbury school system promoted (particularly for younger kids) was to give the child opportunities to explore areas of interest and then let them decide which area they would like to explore most. This often led to boys not wanting to learn to read and girls often disinterested in physical activities. That said, as they got older they would often meld their interests to some more traditional study, as they found they couldn't pursue their interest further without that knowledge. You could have all kinds of great activities that involve elemental maths. A monumentally dull topic at a discipline level I agree. I recall my father suggesting I count the number of coloured/brands of cars that passed our house. This might seem laughable at first, but was actually very insightful of him, as he had judged correctly my interest in cars back then. I recall doing this for a number of years even up to age 11. As I put them into graphs, patterns and times of the year etc.
tasmlab Posted January 8, 2014 Author Posted January 8, 2014 Hi Josh, Adie (age 8) likes: - Bike riding - Minecraft - Wii, Legend of Zelda in particular - Horseback riding - Karate (at least she likes the class she takes) - Her hamster, Gilbert - Ancient Egypt - Drawing and painting - Playing with toys (currently a country playmobile set) - Cooking and cooking TV shows - Playing with friends - Performing magic (on and off) - Theatre/acting That's all that coming to me in a minute of thinking. She was an excellent student in PS. She also tends to be a rule follower, like she worries if she sees somebody at the movie theatre with their feet up on the seat.
ccuthbert Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Here was my unschooling plan: Tasmlab, I think you don't get it--which is fine since it's your family and your decision. But unless your unschooling plan looks like mine above, it ain't unschooling. Just saying...
ribuck Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 What ccuthbert said. Provided you have lots of time available to help the child explore whatever they're passionate about, it will work out well. No pre-ordained structure needed.
Kevin Beal Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 I'm worried you might be a little too lax on the bible studying. 10 hours a day? That's it?!
tasmlab Posted January 28, 2014 Author Posted January 28, 2014 Here was my unschooling plan: Tasmlab, I think you don't get it--which is fine since it's your family and your decision. But unless your unschooling plan looks like mine above, it ain't unschooling. Just saying... Hi Ccuthbert, we're coming around the more we talk to people. We've been at it for about 22 days so far and most initial plans have been chucked. My misuse of the term 'unschool' aside, just hearing what others do day-to-day has been helpful. THanks! I'm worried you might be a little too lax on the bible studying. 10 hours a day? That's it?! We had to cut down to accommodate their daily prayer schedule. Can't be praying if you've got your nose stuck in a book!
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