Most Popular Posts from the Learning Curve

Since the "reopening" of this here blog, I've sifted through the drafts folder and tossed whatever was no longer relevant, carried an unpleasant vibe (I was deeply dark and ranty for a while there) and revisited some of the existing posts to make sure they weren't replete with irrelevance or overly snarky.

I assessed some of the most popular posts and decided to re-share them with you.  Some are prolific ponderance, some are a great laugh - enjoy!

Questions and Answers

After 10 years of active participation in Home Education, hundreds of interviews with education guru's during the UM days, lots of personal research, trial, error and retry, a few dozen articles and a plethora of super smart connections....  I am fairly well equipped to help out newbies to life without school.   I will do my best to answer or at least point you in a good direction.

I will respond with researched fact,  experienced opinion and a combination of both, so feel free to ask away....   Use the comment section.  I will either respond directly or via post :)

Making the Grade

Learning can not be Graded
Grading is a school thing, meant to compartmentalize and measure only regurgitation, not comprehension or true understanding of a concept.  Grades are also used to as a tool by which to evaluate the teacher.  Grading relies upon standardized output, not the value of input.  It's an arbitrary practice with a superficial foundation producing superficiality.

You may have noticed that when I offer advice to home educating families, even insofar as recommendations for materials, I  do not recommend “grade levels”.  This is because when we learn without school intervention, we do not need grading and I strongly recommend that we dissociate ourselves from this fabricated need.

Grades are something invented and used by the school system to measure, not the intellect of a child, but their ability to absorb and regurgitate data. Very often the information, once successfully purged for the test, is not cemented and rarely recalled to be used later.  Any data that is stored usually lacks cohesiveness and the significance of relationships between concepts are never appreciated or even recognized.  However, learning is not about receiving a reward, it is a constant and perpetual experience that can not really be measured because the experience is personal and different for each individual.

Furthermore, grades are often associated with age as in 1st grade, 2nd grade etc.  This further categorizes human beings perpetuating the paradigm of age segregation.  Older children begin to assume (unjustified) intellectual (as well as physical) superiority to younger children making the latter feel subordinate.  It is no wonder that freshman in high school have a hard time.  Grading is a blatant exercise in social engineering.

Instead of grading, open yourself and your family up to allow wealthy and varied treasure of ideas for teaching and  discovery to continuously learn about the world in a variety of different ways. 

Tear Down the Wall: And Learning Happens

Learning is important.  Academics are important.  Language skills are crucial to life.  Math is a language so that too is vital to our creative intellect and quality of life.  These things are part of our world and so are there to be explored, understood, pondered, questioned and absorbed with the assistance and guidance and support of others.  To compartmentalize and homogenize this process is like trapping the very essence of human nature by giant brick walls.

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Sometimes my children help their schooled friends with projects or homework.  I don't mind and they always seem delighted to offer assistance.  Sometimes it's just fun, sometimes they help them finish up quicker so they can come outside sooner :)  Either way, I'm cool with it and the other parents haven't complained.

A few weeks ago my children helped their friend create a video project for school.  The girl was praised for the video.  A comment was passed sounding something to the effect of "...well they have all the time they want to learn video editing because they don't have to worry about school"  Hmm.  Yes, that's actually true.

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Last Spring my son was shining during his baseball season.  At one of the games I heard a Mom behind me tell another Mom that "sure, he's doing great because he can practice all day if he wants, they homeschool."  Okay... and?

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My other son's director was telling her cast parents that she promises to try and have rehearsals done by 7:30 PM.  I said that it was fine.  A Dad laughed and said "Sure, your kids don't have to get up for school in the morning".  Yes.  That's right.

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It's interesting that these very natural, normal and healthy attributes of school-free living are considered strange.  We aren't strange.  We are simply more free.  You see, life is full of restrictions and limitations and boundaries.  The worst thing we do in today's world is lock these shackles onto our children intellectually, creatively and even physically, when they are young. 

We think that by sending them to school we help them "reach their full potential" but the truth is that we are hindering them.  We are putting their lives on a linear frequency when in fact life is not a straight line - life curves.  Nature curves.  Everything spirals and bends and ebbs and flows.  To force a human being to live this way is to restrict the very thing that makes us human.

We simply cannot reach our full potential unless we are free to do so.


Here is a specific example that I will use to punctuate this point:

Recently, my daughters friend asked for help writing a short scary story as a Halloween themed assignment.  J (my daughter) was asked to look over her friends first draft for potential spelling/grammar errors.  J did so and made several suggestions on wording and prose.  Together, they elaborated, expanded, collaborated and created a story that they were both happy with, and they had a great time.

Later, J told me that friend's Mom read it and became suspicious that friend plagiarized, so she pasted the story in a search.  Alas, it was indeed an original.   I'm not sure if friend told her Mom that J helped her, and ultimately it doesn't matter to J, but the point is that it was interesting to me that when something was done well, and the possibility that it was done as a collaborative effort,  it raised suspicion that it was "cheating" which really quashed all the fun the child was having writing a story with her friend. 

Sometimes when we enlist the help of other creative minds and ask for intellectual input, we expand our own potential and break our own walls down.  It's really a wonderful thing, not a bad thing, to combine efforts.  I dislike this schoolish idea that if help was used, it's somehow inauthentic.

As for the quality of the work raising suspicion, well the thing of it is that J does excel at creative writing.  I wouldn't say she is a genius, but as John Taylor Gatto stated "...genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.” And that's just it.  J manages herself in her pursuit of creative writing. 

Please do not confuse this with the notion of radical unschooling.  I don't mean that I never actively taught her to write.  I did and do.  Communication is VITAL in our world, especially in today's social climate and good skills are so very scarce.  I have always made it a point to introduce my children to healthy writing skills and help them learn to develop and master the art of language, both written, oral and unspoken. 

We appreciate the mechanics of language as well as usage.  We read good literature and we write regularly.  The thing is however, I have never forced my children to learn these things.  I never had to.  I simply discuss the importance and we move along.  What they read, when they read, what they write and when they write is entirely up to them - but they read and they write.   So essentially, they do "manage themselves".   It is my role to introduce significant, healthy and beneficial skills and help them acquire,practice and master these skills, in whatever way(s) they need that help.  And this is different for every child and every family.  It is the Curve.

What is missing in school is this flexibility, allowance for self-management and FUN.   The children are locked into specific assignments, written in specifically standardized styles and within a limited time frame.  If they collaborate creatively to improve the quality of their work, they are punished and accused of cheating.   It's really very sad and not at all healthy or productive.  Which is why I continue to encourage Learning with a Curve... a natural flow of curiosity leading to healthy exploration and  intellectual stimulation.  Limitless... without boundaries... without walls.

Are home educated children smarter? Better? No.  They are just freer.

Methods and Materials Vs. "Natural Learning"

There is often much discourse and confusion over using methods and materials in home education and independent learning.  I've heard the argument that "natural learners" do not use methods or materials and if you do - you are not a "natural learner".   I disagree with this statement because (A) it's a fallacy and sets up the false dichotomy of two extremes, ignoring the more realistic and identifiable existence of the perpetually sliding scale wherein most families operate; and (B) because it denies the potential value in using tools to achieve a goal.  It's very unhealthy to limit ourselves by limiting use and exposure based on a (weak) philosophical ideology.  By refusing to use curriculum or certain books/tools, we are essentially enslaving ourselves to another methodology after all.   In education, methods and materials are part of our world.  Use them!  Just don't be used by them.  Aye there's the rub!

Methods
There are several methodologies available through home education networks that provide curriculum  based on Trivium ideology.  Most of these are labeled under a “Classical Education” heading.  

Personally, I have used and/or reviewed several of these and while I can say that many of them do offer valuable tools and skill building exercises, I found them to still be boxed, and by boxed I mean that they are standardized curriculum and as such are limiting to a truly whole and natural learning experience or environment.  

That said, it is always a good idea to start familiarizing yourself with the methods, ideas, materials and curriculum that exist because the information will help you discover what will be right for your child and your family.  Just don’t commit to any one at the exclusion of other ideas.    In fact it is wise to avoid committing to any approach ever.  The best advice I ever received is the first advice I usually pass along and that is to stay flexible!  Allow the unique personality, needs, desires and characteristics of your child to be the main factor in determining the curve of your flow.  Allow your own family dynamic, cultural habits, personal ideals and beliefs to guide your decisions.  Keep in mind that this will change as your family grows and as your child grows and it’s important that we grow with it.  That flexibility is precisely what school cannot offer and what you can.

I’m not saying that there is no room for methodologies or resources, certainly there is as most successful and healthy independent learners will mix-match and blend.  I cannot tell anyone exactly which resources, methodologies or materials to use because in order to create a personal experience, this has to be a personalized experience.  I encourage you to embrace your freedom and to use it to the advantage of your family.

Using books and materials

              

Always use the world and natural life to learn, and use workbooks only as supplements and ‘exercise’.  Workbooks are for workouts;in the same way that dancing and playing are best for exercise, but a treadmill can be useful too but we should never rely exclusively on the treadmill.

Workbooks are helpful and should not be a “sin” in home learning.  They can be useful.  We must simply remain flexible and we must use them and tailor our use to fit our style and needs rather than be dictated by them.  Skip pages, use them to help illustrate, exemplify or for just plain practice.   
 

Don’t follow directions exactly, use creative judgement.  Following directions is a useful skill as well, but so is adaptation and improvisation.  Most workbooks assume the audience is schooled so you have to be creative and adaptive.  Perhaps just refer to the book for ideas, then make up your own exercises.  

If you remain flexible and keep in mind that in true natural learning, everything and anything can be utilized, then we can benefit from the organic world as well as the manufactured materials.  Tools and materials can be very useful if we use them in ways that are helpful to us.  

Simply put: When it comes to methods and materials - Use them as a tool, not a rule.

The Art of Language

Learning Begins with Language

When we are young, we learn to speak as an organic consequence of natural human curiosity.  We have an innate desire to understand our world and to commune with and relate to people and nature; and we use language to accomplish this.  

We learn to talk by attaching words to objects and form phrases to express desires and thoughts.  Later we discover the written language through symbols in the alphabet.  Then we discover ways to put the symbols together to form words.... and then sentences.. then proper sentences… then complex sentences.  Eventually we learn to put the sentences together into paragraphs and organized writings that express more detailed thoughts.

Verbal communication is a natural companion of written communication.

To help children continue to learn language skills,  it helps to TALK.  Practice speaking.  Read a book then tell the story together.  This process is fun, and also reflects the natural spiral or curve of learning.  Discover by reading, understand by discussion and reinforce by reiterating the idea of the story later either orally or in writing. 

Value of Good Speaking/Writing Skills
Be sure to incorporate healthy skills into conversation and avoid “lazy talk” lexicons.  These may be popular culture but they are a detriment to, and stifle communication because they can so easily be misunderstood.   Poor use of inflection and inadequate vocabulary limits communication options thereby limiting our ability to understand each other clearly.  It is important to avoid perpetuating poor interpersonal relationships by avoiding pop-culture jargon and using clear and easily understood language instead.

Foreign language to understand our own
Learning a foreign language is a great boon to helping us understand the structure of our own language.  When we translate words, phrases and especially grammar, we reinforce what we know about our linguistic structure.

While it is a 'dead' language,  Latin is of especially great value in understanding our own language When we study the complexity of structure,  tense, and case in Latin, we automatically relate it to our own language and begin to naturally recognize the architecture in everyday use.  Even the simple use or non use of pronouns for example, helps us understand the proper use of pronouns in English.

What's more,  learning to recognize the Latin (and/or Greek) etymology of English words helps to elucidate the meaning of  our language and thus improves our vocabulary, expanding our ability to communicate more clearly... which enhances our relationships overall.

Spelling
Rather than rely on spell-check, it behooves us to encourage spelling mastery for our children.  The old school way of writing words five times each however, is not useful or of any real benefit in understanding spelling.   By using etymology for spelling rather than memorization, we can learn the formula for how words are structured.  We begin to recognize the phonetic break down of letter combinations.  If we learn to recognize roots, prefixes and suffixes, we can easily hear a word, acknowledge the parts and spell it with ease.  One who understands etymology can hear a complex word they've never heard before and spell it with ease without ever having to memorize it.  This is the difference between simply memorizing symbolic combinations, and understanding the relationship between the symbols.  This is crucial to true intellectual growth and overall personal health; because after all, communication is about relationships (commune and relate). 

Imagine two mechanics.  One memorizes the parts of an engine and how they go together.  The other studies combustion and how vehicles are propelled into motion.  If presented with an entirely new and alternative type of motor, the latter is more likely to understand how to fix it while the former might be baffled because it is not in his file of memorization.

Simply put - when we understand what we are doing, there is no need for memorization.

Discover, understand, utilize.  That is the curve.  That is learning.  That is living - free of the limitations of stale and stagnant and empty information.   It is the difference between indoctrination and education and it all begins with understanding the complexity, beauty and value of skillful language arts.

Understanding the Curve: Recognizing the Relationship between Learning and Living

We can incorporate skillful learning and deliberate education into natural life by embracing it’s natural relationship that already exists.

There is no “How To” instruction guide to this.  It is not a matter of explicit instructions; in fact, doing so would contradict the entire idea.   To incorporate skillful learning and critical reason into life, we must first accept that learning is part of living and that we can weave critical logical skills into the fabric of our lives simply by accepting the harmonious and complimentary relationship between these two concepts. 

All of life is an ongoing, self-perpetuating learning experience.  Many of the most influential spiritual gurus and philosophers throughout history have strongly suggested that learning is the entire purpose and meaning of life.  I myself tend to believe and assert that learning is the very meaning of life.  From the moment we are born,  our brains are working to discover, understand and communicate with other living beings and the entire environment that surrounds us.  We hunger and thirst for new information and understanding on an ongoing basis.  

Human beings are compelled to move forward, physically (we learn to walk by natural compulsion) spiritually (we love, we feel, we anger, we mourn, we laugh) and intellectually (we want to know, understand, tell our story, hear others, count, analyze, try).  We will do it all the time, no matter what.  The question is whether or not we will proceed in a way that fosters health, and with encouragement that supports further positive growth. 

The snafu occurs when that natural desire is interrupted by attempts to affix prescribed agendas of others; when fallacious information is presented inside of a controlled and limited environment; when discussion is discouraged in favor of absorbing arbitrary information and when that absorption is measured by tests and children are lost in worlds of statistics and made to believe that personal success is measured by digits place value on a checking account.

For example, school dictates a governed objective, or that of a mass-collective . This standard ruins intellectual curiosity and stunts communication skills.

So learning can, does and will happen regardless of what we do or avoid doing with, for and to our children.  Whether or not they will learn is not the question.  The question is how will they learn, what limits will be placed upon them, or removed and what guidance, support and encouragement will they receive.  Will it be healthy?  Will it be supported?  Will the information be presented by experienced wisdom?  What is the value of the education being acquired? 

This is all determined by the value of the learning experience and a valuable learning experience is one that acknowledges individual desires, utilizes creativity and meets our spiritual, physical and intellectual needs in healthy and nutritious ways. 

We do this by incorporating everything we learn here with some practical ideas and suggestions that can be used as springboards to inspire our own ideas and experiences for and with our family, and without institutional intervention.

Once we understand the philosophies of natural learning and the philosophy of logic, we begin to naturally see how they compliment each other and how true personal freedom relies upon these principles.  This is the Curve.  Once we recognize the Curve, applying the principles begins to happen organically, and we will recognize opportunities more and more often. 

As we move forward it is always helpful to seek out tips, ideas and suggestions that can help us explore and discover a deeper understanding, a more enriching learning experience so that we can help our family flourish intellectually thus spiritually, thus physically.    Coming soon, I will add more to a practical application section which will offer ideas to supplement your own unique experience or prompt your own discoveries.