Homeschooling in the Tech Community
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@Minion-Queen I am sure a little bit of time on ye ol' Google would serve me better. I was just looking for big picture overview. You have put this in my queue of possible ways to educate my daughter, as before I had not even considered it. She is 5 weeks old at this point, so I have plenty of time.
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We don't do any tests here. Tests are one of the things that we feel is wrong with the public school system. We teach only for our kids to learn, not for them to "rate" against others. We want them to know the material, not memorize facts. There is a reason why I feel that SUNY Empire is one of the best universities around - they don't do tests either and only build portfolios. It's much harder not having tests, but when you want to really learn you don't use tests. Tests are an avoidance of education.
Finland, which is now the top rates public school system in the world, does not use tests either.
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Check out Grove Social's nascent home schooling community too...
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@Minion-Queen said:
But the only reason you sought out learning is because you already were "learning" even if not a lot. You were in a semi structured environment setup to learn (even if you really weren't).
That's a big leap. I wanted to learn, school made me do other things (ride buses, sit quietly, wait while students who couldn't count learned their numbers, etc.) I liked learning before I went to school. I liked learning less when there.
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@Minion-Queen said:
A lot of unschooling parents just don't do anything. And expect their children will just learn to read etc. I have seen this done many times and now the what should be a highschool student barley reads and can't pass the GED.
Reading is one of those things that just has to be taught. It's needed so that students can access all other learning resources.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Minion-Queen said:
But the only reason you sought out learning is because you already were "learning" even if not a lot. You were in a semi structured environment setup to learn (even if you really weren't).
That's a big leap. I wanted to learn, school made me do other things (ride buses, sit quietly, wait while students who couldn't count learned their numbers, etc.) I liked learning before I went to school. I liked learning less when there.
I'd consider you on the more rare side Scott - most kids really probably don't care about learning, at least not like we traditionally understand it.
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You have lots of time then! Homeschooling was awesome for my son. We were able to go where we wanted, tons of real life skills and we went at his pace. Sometimes that meant that he was way ahead on something and way behind on others. Because we just took time off as we wanted instead of doing traditional school vacations he graduated very early at 15. He has since still continued to do school VERY non-traditionally. He is learning German because he wants to, guitar, keyboard, IT Stuff (he works with NTG as an intern doing tons of research and working in our server lab). He has worked with his father on his business. Taken care of his grandparents, helped keep our household organized. Is on our church worship team. Spent a year with us in the mission field in Africa where he "homeschooled native students" and learned 2 languages.
@scottalanmiller and @Dominica are able to live outside of the country and just go along as normal with travel all over the place and not skip a beat.
There are so many more options out there these days. You can do the complete thing by your self, order a full curriculum package, do online schooling where you are part of it but there is a teacher and someone to get support from.
I could go on and on for hours about the benefits. Of course your child could drive you batty as well
but that is the joy of being a parent. -
@scottalanmiller said:
We don't do any tests here. Tests are one of the things that we feel is wrong with the public school system. We teach only for our kids to learn, not for them to "rate" against others. We want them to know the material, not memorize facts. There is a reason why I feel that SUNY Empire is one of the best universities around - they don't do tests either and only build portfolios. It's much harder not having tests, but when you want to really learn you don't use tests. Tests are an avoidance of education.
Finland, which is now the top rates public school system in the world, does not use tests either.
How do you gauge comprehension if not for testing? I'm certainly not saying you're wrong to say testing is bad - I'm a horrible test taker - I'm just curious how you gauge their understanding.
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@Dashrender said:
I'd consider you on the more rare side Scott - most kids really probably don't care about learning, at least not like we traditionally understand it.
Is that true? Most kids love to learn. It's the natural human state. Schools work exceptionally hard to beat the love of learning out of them at an early age. You don't have many kids to observe who haven't been to school to see what a love of learning looks like when not curtailed by "schools."
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I'd consider you on the more rare side Scott - most kids really probably don't care about learning, at least not like we traditionally understand it.
Is that true? Most kids love to learn. It's the natural human state. Schools work exceptionally hard to beat the love of learning out of them at an early age. You don't have many kids to observe who haven't been to school to see what a love of learning looks like when not curtailed by "schools."
Kids love to learn how to spell words? and the history of the world - I'd bet not. If instead they were able to lead where the learning goes by their own interest with some of that needed information tossed in there, then maybe..
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We continued to do traditional testing methods. Partly because we lived in a state that required it for homeschoolers. But it was also a good gauge for us to keep us on track. We just tested once a year (unlike public schools that test constantly) this kept us on track for the most part. But as I said I missed some culturally acceptable things like nursery rhymes and fairytales. Not a huge deal but if you don't have those small bits of information you can miss things later on.
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@Dashrender said:
How do you gauge comprehension if not for testing? I'm certainly not saying you're wrong to say testing is bad - I'm a horrible test taker - I'm just curious how you gauge their understanding.
Testing doesn't gauge comprehension either. That's something specifically missing in normal school settings. Tests only test memorization (useless) and test taking ability (useful, but not in good settings.) Tests are used to avoid gauging comprehension. Tests are easy, figuring out what people know is hard.
It's a lot like interviewing. We all know that simple, memorization style questions in interviews are the norm, but we also know that they show almost nothing and cause good people to not get jobs and bad people to get them because they test random trivial memorization and not understanding of the material.
Just like in job situations, you can best gauge understanding through conversation and portfolio review. Anyone can tell you that the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588. That's a useless fact drilled into every student for no reason. What students can't tell you is why the Spanish Armada was important, why it was the bane of the British, why the defeat was so important to world history and who the main players were and what their motivations were or what we can learn about people, events and history because of it. In school the defeat of the Spanish Armada was literally relegated to a single date to memorize. One of the most important events in modern history and no one even knows what it was.
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@Dashrender said:
Kids love to learn how to spell words? and the history of the world - I'd bet not. If instead they were able to lead where the learning goes by their own interest with some of that needed information tossed in there, then maybe..
Spelling not too often, that's why reading and writing is one of the few things you need to formally teach. But history of the world? Show me a kid that doesn't find that interesting until school makes it boring. Watching kids go through homeschooling, even spelling is something that my kids ask to do because they enjoy it outside of a school setting.
Kids are designed to learn, they enjoy taking in information and understanding the world around them. It's how kids naturally are. You just have to not stop them from wanting to do so.
I only get to see so many kids who never went to school, but those that I do see love learning those things. My kids LOVE world history, for example. It's a treat for them.
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@Minion-Queen said:
We continued to do traditional testing methods. Partly because we lived in a state that required it for homeschoolers. But it was also a good gauge for us to keep us on track. We just tested once a year (unlike public schools that test constantly) this kept us on track for the most part. But as I said I missed some culturally acceptable things like nursery rhymes and fairytales. Not a huge deal but if you don't have those small bits of information you can miss things later on.
I don't remember getting those in school either. Maybe I did but I don't remember. I know them from before school age. I can even picture the books that I had that taught them.
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@Dashrender said:
Kids love to learn how to spell words?
Of course, my kids are my kids and I have read two histories of the Oxford dictionary and am currently reading "Made in America", a history of the American dialect of English
I'm pretty anal about spelling, using British (Queen's English) form when possible and using the full alphabet, not the American shortened one lacking letters like æ and œ.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Kids love to learn how to spell words?
Of course, my kids are my kids and I have read two histories of the Oxford dictionary and am currently reading "Made in America", a history of the American dialect of EnglishI'm pretty anal about spelling, using British (Queen's English) form when possible and using the full alphabet, not the American shortened one lacking letters like æ and œ.
I use English-English spelling all the time, unless spell check changes it, or I make a strange mistake since English is not my first language. And of course I use French and Mediæval Latin letters like @scottalanmiller mentions, and I'm especially anal about this in words like résumé where not having them changes the meaning of the word, or if people misspell them and put stuff like "resumé," I actually had a guy apply for a job and spell it that way, I didn't correct him, but I did email him a response and spelled it correctly (résumé) and this moron emails me back to tell me I misspelled it.
Having a Hungarian keyboard makes this all pretty easy, especially with the dead key that lets me throw out basically any Latin-1 and Latin-2 character.
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At this point, our daughters are 3 and 6 so test taking isn't even a consideration. Later on, I plan to give the girls tests so that they will know how to take tests and what to expect. They need to be prepared, should they attend a college with tests or want to take AP exams. Test taking is a skill in and of itself, and I will teach it as such. As for assessing knowledge and comprehension, there are many ways to do that without taking tests. Projects, research papers and essays are all good ways to gauge and promote retention and understanding, and for Math, just demonstrating the ability to independently work problems is enough. No need for the unnecessary pressure of calling it a "test".
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That's one thing that I hate about American keyboards, so many standard letters are missing and it is often so complicated to get to them. Now that I have switched to using a Mac it is pretty easy to get to most alternative letters. Just hold down the a, o or e key and the options pop up. Although the autocorrect is a pain as my well spelled words show up, now, as American spellings
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@scottalanmiller Yeah 103 or go to hell!
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Is there a major downside to homeschooling? I know everyone always goes on about the social aspect, and it is clear that that can be solved. Do you find there is anything else missing in the homeschool environment?
