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Educating Your Children Series

I release a portion of my copyright for this series for free distribution, as long as proper attribution is provided (and no fee is charged for the copies) and provide this single page of the series for this purpose.

Educating Your Children:  Introduction

When I asked for blog topics, the most frequent request had to do with homeschooling.  It is a huge topic.  Over the next several weeks I will attempt to write about the various aspects of the subject, documenting our experience, and the experiences of those I met in our homeschooling travels.

At the time of this writing, our three children are in college.  They’re in the local community college, all pursuing Associate of Arts degrees.  What they do after that will be up to them, but what they decide to do was always up to them.  It’s their life and they have to be masters of it.

That’s the best and most appropriate place to start.

Educating Your Children I:  Masters of Their Own Destiny

Where I used to work (a large university) they had “brown bag seminars.” These were very brief seminars over the lunch hour, on a variety of topics (not all having to do with education).  I was a young mother at that time, working full time.  The seminar I attended had to do with raising children and choosing day care and nursery schools.  Since I was in the target market for that, I was anxious to hear what they had to say about the subject.

Much to my surprise, the initial portion of the seminar had to do with what we wanted as parents.  It would be incorrect to say that it was about parenting, but that was close.  It had more to do with who we are as people, and what kind of a relationship we had with our children.

The relationships we have with our children will (generally) come close to the type of relationship we had with our parents.  Despite the fact that many of us may not want to be the parents our parents were, or not repeat their same mistakes, our general attitudes about children and how to raise them did originate from our parents. Everyone doesn’t have the same experiences and so we can be very different kinds of parents, with different attitudes about the relationship we should have with our children.  Different doesn’t mean better or worse or good or bad.  While some parenting styles and relationships are bad, the fact that there are different methods to achieve the same goals should imply that there are many ways that will work.

So what do we mean by work?  If there are many methods that will work, we have to define what it is we’re trying to achieve.

What do you want for your children?

When our children are babies or toddlers, what we may be thinking about is the short term.  We may look forward to them saying their first word, taking their first step, or sleeping through the night.  Those are milestones.  They aren’t goals. When we’re talking about what we want for our children, our goals, we have to think long term, beyond the minor and major milestones that we tick off as they mature from infants to young adults.  More specifically, we need to think about what type of people we hope they’ll be, what their adult lives will be like, and what we value in others (and ourselves). 

Parents can have dramatically different desires and many ways to define success.  Some parents may want their children to be Captains of Industry, doctors or other professionals, or to be upstanding members of their community to the extent that they may be president of the United States some day.  Other parents may have more modest goals, such as their children being able to support themselves and having families of their own.

Few of us define our goals specifically, to the extent that we have isolated a specific profession or career or an address where our children will live.  If we’re honest with ourselves, however, we have fantasies about that.  Some dads may want their sons to be famous athletes, football or baseball stars.  Some mothers may want their daughters to be fashion models, famous actresses, marry a royal to become a real princess, or challenge stereotypes to become a specialist in a medical field that might end a particular disease. 

It is important to distinguish between what we want for our children specifically, and what we want for them generically.  It is also important to remember that people like Tiger Woods are exceptions.  For every Tiger Woods there are hundreds of children who were taken to the golf course and hated the game, or had no particular aptitude or skill.  We need to keep in-check our disappointments that our children may not be able to live up to our fantasies of them.  A parent may be disappointed that their child will never be a Tiger Woods, but the child may be happy about that.  The disappointment the parent might feel should not convey a disappointment with the child.  That’s the parent’s problem and issue to deal with, not the child’s.

That is not to say that motivating a child is a bad thing.  I’m also not suggesting that a parent might need to be there to keep a child focused on something longer term, when they temporarily waiver, or are bored with something.  Discipline is also an important thing to instill in our children and stick-to-it is part of learning discipline.  When I was a child, for example, there were times when I didn’t want to continue doing something.  When it came to the violin, my mother let me set it aside after one semester.  When it came to being uncomfortable at a new summer school, she told me I could quit in two weeks, but I had to stick it out for those two weeks.  What happened to me is that after two weeks the newness and discomfort wore off and I continued on without trouble.  Those are often small hurdles to overcome, and parents can come up with methods to help their children get over them.

If I had been gifted at the violin, my mother’s attitude might have been different.  She might have told me I had to continue for one more semester, until I realized my own gift.  At some point, however, a parent has to allow a child to make some of their own decisions… and how soon, in what arena, and how pervasive was the subject of the brown bag seminar.

How much power should a child have?

That was the question the speaker asked all of us.  We weren’t expected to answer on the spot, but it focused us on the core issue, and gave us something to think about.  Once we had decided for ourselves, it was to become the primary question we would ask of day care centers and nursery schools (and of any school where we were considering sending our children). 

The answer to that question allows a parent to decide if the center or school believes that the amount of power a child should have is in concert with how much power a parent thinks a child should have.

Some parents might answer “a lot of power, but less power than an adult.” Another parent might answer “very little, until they have shown discipline, aptitude, or self-restraint.” Some people might break it down, and have different answers, depending on the subject, such as “power to decide what interests them, but their behavior must conform to an acceptable standard.”

There is no right or wrong answer.  The goal is to find a center/school where their answer is as close to the parent’s as possible.  After speaking with the owner/manager of the school, then the parent was to validate the answer.  Observe the classes or the relationship the teachers had with the students.  If it wasn’t consistent with the answer given, it was a clue that something was wrong. 

This was a tool and there were (obviously) other considerations, such as the student-teacher ratio, the cleanliness of the facility, and the cost. 

So, how much power should a child have?

I spent many years thinking about that question.  I was probably more permissive in my original answer, because one of my concerns was that my children’s passions could be extinguished if they weren’t given a lot of wiggle room to figure out what their passions and skills were, but there was one of my mother’s memes always floating in the back of my head:  A parent’s job is to raise a child so the child is capable of standing on his/her own two feet.

Some day your children are going to leave home.  They’re going to have to support themselves, have relationships with others you don’t know, be able to perform their job so they don’t get fired, or are able to make enough income so they aren’t starving or unable to pay their debts.  They’re going to have to be able to do all of that without looking over their shoulder for your approval- or disapproval-face to guide their decisions.  They’re going to have to have your approval- or disapproval-face in their heads, with enough experience in making decisions that they’re capable of doing it with confidence.

My answer (through years of thinking about it) was:  I want them to have as much power as they can handle, while still keeping them safe from unnecessary harm.  I don’t want to have them experience failure or defeat simply to “toughen them up” but so that they can feel pride when they do succeed, and do make the right decisions.  They don’t have the power to make decisions about the household or household rules, or how the parents live their lives, but they have some input.  I will provide them a safety net, within reason, but I may not always be around, and they need to be able to live a successful, honest, happy, and moral life without my constant guidance.  They have to be allowed some latitude to screw up, make mistakes, and may have to make restitution of some sort if they screw up too badly, but until they screw up, or demonstrate that they’re incapable of handling the trust that has been extended to them, I will trust them.  The most important thing between a parent and child is trust, and from that earned trust, all is possible.

Within the framework of the above, parents can begin thinking about what it means to them when we say that a child will become an adult who is a “master of their own destiny.”

And from that, we can begin to make educational decisions to meet the goals we have defined.

Educating Your Children II:  Choosing

Despite what might be assumed in reading about our decision to home-school, I do not advocate it.  What I do advocate is making sure that your children get the best education possible.  I do not know of a decent public or private school, and price is a factor with the latter.  Some schools, such as religious schools, may be better, but they’re very close to being as bad as (and sometimes worse than) their public-school counterparts. 

My two children attended public school until they were 11 and 9, respectively.  My husband’s son attended Catholic school until he completed the eighth grade.  Despite the differences in ownership, they used the same textbooks and methods.  While husband’s son did have the experience of a smaller, more intimate school, there was no measurable difference between where he was at any specific grade, compared to the other two.  We had a lot of catching up to do, once we started homeschooling him.

Homeschooling isn’t the best option, on its face.  Homeschooling is often the best option, based on cost.  It depends, however, on your goals.  We were interested in what today’s parlance considers an “elite” education, a classical education, focused almost entirely on classic literature, a study of history, and the basic mechanics of every day life.  We were not at all interested in our children learning from school how to use a day planner, studying the “art” of things like hip-hop or graffiti, or to become brainwashed in social- or moral- relativism.

When Thomas Jefferson set about the goals for public education, he focused very closely on what we were trying to achieve for our children:

• To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
  
To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing;

To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;

To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;

To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;

And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

--Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818

In a nutshell, we were interested in ensuring that our children were as BS-proof as possible, to be able to express themselves in discussion and in writing, and to have sufficient grounding in history and literature to understand the path of the Enlightenment, and why that was so important.  Our children’s minds were not constrained, nor their language (to the shock and astonishment of some), but their behavior was strictly controlled in terms of etiquette, respecting deserving elders, manners, and their personal presentation (grooming, clothing choices, etc.).

While the etiquette and manners lessons continue almost in perpetuity, the lessons of being BS-proof are closer to completion.  They can (generally) spot a fraud when they see it.  They are also able to think logically, and see through logical fallacies.

Their experience in community college has been interesting.  Early on, they each resigned themselves to the fact that the majority of their classes, from a learning perspective, were a waste of time.  When a subject was of great interest to them (usually the second semester of a subject), they were angered when the professor taught them nothing, or had nothing to offer.  They went-along-to-get-along and got the A’s, doing whatever ridiculous work the professor required. They’ve also been astonished at the drop-out rates for the advanced-/second-tier classes (finding themselves in class sizes starting at over thirty and ending up with under a dozen), and disappointed that third-tier classes have been unavailable.

Daughter, for example, was unable to continue her Japanese language studies after Beginning I and II, and has been struggling to maintain her Japanese literacy during the forced “blackout” period until she can take it up again at a four-year school.  Middle son will not be able to go beyond Philosophy II, to his utter disgust.  Daughter took a piano class to fulfill the “music” requirement, but the teacher never bothered to teach them how to read music, so she was forced to teach it to herself, describing the class as nothing more than play along with the teacher, who gives no guidance whatsoever.  “I could have done that myself” she reported. 

They’ve all endured the horrors that are the general art and music classes which, despite the broad and thrilling subject matter, manage to be distilled into the most horrendous and boring classes offered.  Our daughter was able to get the Dean of the Art Department to allow her to bypass the general art course (which was rubbish) by substituting the various (and more challenging) drawing courses she’d taken.

This has meant that we’ve had to fill in the gaps, with assistance on reading music, philosophy recommendations, and a plan to send our daughter and youngest son to Japan for (at least) three months, for an intensive “college fluency level” Japanese language course.  We are not certain if they will choose to get their bachelor’s degrees in Japan, but it is an option they want to leave open, and their desire to speak the language fluently is a personal goal for both of them.  In order to overcome the nonsense of the general art- and music classes, we’re taking the children to Europe (one last time) to the romance capitals:  Rome, Paris, and Vienna.  We’re hoping that we can overcome the bad taste left in their mouths from the “general” courses they were forced to attend, but hated.

Above all, it should be noted that we do not consider university degrees to be an end or goal for our children. Rather, we consider the education of our children as an end. University degrees are simply a useful byproduct of that education.

I mention this personal experience, and our latest endeavor, to demonstrate that it is always possible to supplement a mediocre education, if a child is motivated to learn.  Maintaining that motivation, most especially the love and desire to learn, is what can be most at-risk by traditional educational institutions, i.e., public (or awful) private schools… in K through 12 and college/university level, but that love and desire to learn is unquestionably the most important thing that a parent can instill and nurture in their child—as important as any specific learning, in fact.

In choosing an educational program, then, the most important aspect is to guarantee that a child’s natural curiosity and passion for learning are not blunted and stamped out, but not coddled either.  More than anything, the drudgery of “all children doing the same thing at the same time” is the biggest problem with most K through 12 institutions.  Children are taught not to excel, not to do better than their classmates, and certainly not get ahead of them, because the idea that they could test-out of some subjects is impossible.  They’ll have to endure entire semesters of content they already know, regardless.

Children should be challenged, but not overwhelmed.  Accomplishments should be earned and individual, not graded on some curve nor achieved through “team” scores.  (Sports are where team skills are developed and winning or losing to other teams is the extent of grading “curves.") Grading on a curve serves the purpose of grading the teacher’s performance, not the performance of the students.

Competition is a good thing, as it teaches children how to win humbly and lose graciously.  Not having the experience of losing sets a child up for a lifetime of being fired for bad performance, in a manner that can be devastating to their adult self-esteem, and their acquisition of any wealth or stability.  It is as children that they should experience competition in its most brutal form, but not with cruelty, to develop their spines and stamina.

Given those goals and desires (customized to your preferences), choosing where a child will be educated becomes an easier decision.  If we’d been able to afford it, our children would have been sent to great educational institutions for their K through 12 educations.  Our fall-back was to home-school them.  When their passions and interests exceeded our expertise or ability to guide them properly, we sought the expertise of others, as tutors and mentors… not different from how we’re approaching their college years.

What is most important to accept and recognize, however, is that the outcome of your children’s education is still your responsibility.  It is not the teacher or the school’s fault if your children are dispassionate about learning, unable to read, incapable of doing math, or cannot comfortably hold their own in a group.  That is the parent’s fault.  Delegating their education to a public or private school, or adopting a correspondence-style program, does not get the parent off the hook either.  Delegation is the act of giving the task to someone else to perform.  The responsibility for ensuring that the task is completed successfully, and of the highest quality, is always with the parent.  If those in whom we’ve delegated the task are not performing as they should, then we must fire them, and find someone who can do the job… or as a last resort, do it ourselves.

Tasks so far:

1. Think clearly about your feelings about children and power.
2. Determine your broad educational goals for K through 12, such as those defined by Jefferson (What must they be able to do at “graduation”?)
3. Research the institutions available to you (including considerations of cost and location) to determine if there is an institution that matches the above.

None of the above steps can or should be skipped.  If you begin with the decision that you’re going to home-school, without researching all your available options, then you’ve cheated… your children.

If you have done the above, and determined that homeschooling is the only option available to you, then you must begin designing your school, planning and choosing which curriculum to use, becoming the educator and facilitator your children deserve, and becoming all things administrative and regulatory.

That is the direction this series will go in future posts.

Educating Your Children III:  The Big, Bad Secret

Before I get to the fun part of homeschooling, I want to go over the not-so-fun stuff.

If you, as a high school graduate, decide that you want to go to college, you need to have your high school transcripts sent to the college, to verify that you have a high school diploma (and that you took the classes required for completion of high school in that state).  You fill out some sort of form, pay the processing and postage fee, and in a few weeks your official transcripts are sent to the college.

Now let’s say that you were home-schooled.  What school has your official transcript?

What home-schoolers have been doing, to get around this, is to go to colleges with a paper bag.  It contains all the pretty pictures you painted, the papers you wrote, the quizzes and tests you took, a list of all the books you read and the book reports about them, and the admissions counselor at the college looks at the stuff to see if you did what you said you did.

That has got to be the most ridiculous and asinine thing I have ever heard of, but people do it.  And then we wonder why so many people don’t take home-schoolers seriously?

Not all high schools are accredited, not even all government schools.  Some colleges and universities require that your high school diploma come from an accredited school (so parents of kids in government schools might want to verify if their local school is accredited).

The accreditation process is a bit difficult.  The school is investigated for their teaching and grading methods (as well as auditing their record-keeping processes).  If they meet acceptable standards, then (and only then) do they receive an accredited status, and it is something they have to do routinely, to maintain the status.  If the school doesn’t pass the accreditation standards, the school doesn’t have to close.  It can keep doing what it was doing, without it.  The school can issue diplomas, that will have no meaning at a college that requires an accredited diploma.

People often confuse “licensed” (as in, a permission to do business) with “accreditation,” and they are not at all related.  Home-schools, in some states, might need some sort of license, but they will never be accredited.

As the owner/manager of a school, you have to keep records… the same records you would expect any school to keep. 

A lot of people who home-school don’t do this, because they live in a state where record-keeping (or any government purview) is not required.  They believe (and many believe quite strongly) that keeping records is a bad thing… and since it isn’t legally required, they don’t.

Now that works out all fine and dandy, as long as the child in that home-school never intends to go to college, or get a real job.  Most parents, however, aren’t interested in limiting their child’s future that drastically.  Most parents understand that the decision to home-school comes with statutory responsibilities, that have nothing (whatsoever) to do with their parental rights not to do any of it.

If a home-schooled adult had a parent who disregarded their responsibilities, they aren’t left totally in the cold.  They can go through the process of getting a GED, attend a community college first (to get an AA degree from an accredited school) and use that to get into a 4-year degree program later.  The person without records still has options.

A few years back, I was involved in a new business venture to help home-schools plan their curriculum (and lesson plans), and to help them maintain their records.  Part of the development of that business included researching the transcript requirements in each state, as well as spot-checking what colleges and universities required.  The purpose of that was to provide to subscribing-parents (ie, our future customers) with something to work towards, and fancy/pretty reports and graphs that detailed their progress.  If the parent knew what was required for a diploma in the schools in their state, then they could set about to design their school’s offering to meet/match it.  They could only exceed the requirements (which is something many home-schools hope to do), if they knew what the minimum was. 

The goal was not to provide accreditation to home-schools, but to allow them to act (in good faith) as if they were meeting all the requirements of accreditation.  This, we believed, would go a long way in improving the reputation of home-schools and would ensure that their children’s options in life would not be stifled by the parents’ decision to home school.  Our target market was older home-schooled children, with parents who took their decision seriously.

Well, it sounded like a good idea.  There was this huge number of home-school families (over two million), and because of that, and our belief that most other parents took their statutory responsibilities as seriously as we did, there would be a never-ending supply of customers to keep our business functioning and prosperous.

After we had the basic systems and programs defined (working with a handful of diligent home-school families to test and design it), we began advertising the business.  Finding home-schoolers was difficult, as there isn’t a home-school phone directory.  For many reasons, home-schoolers hide.  What we did was to contact as many home-school groups as we could.  We sent them a letter, telling them about our service, and asked if we could come to the group (at some future meeting) to describe the service, and to find parents who would be willing to test the service… for free.  Where we had a phone number for a group, we called them to follow up.

What was the most common reaction (besides ignoring us completely)?

That we had gored their sacred cow! We got earfuls of (loud and screeching) complaints that we had the audacity to suggest that a home-school needed to have standards.  The tinfoil hat brigade came out in full-force against us, some even suggesting that it was some sort of secret government plot to “prove” that home-schools were inferior, and the information would be used as a means of discrediting them, and outlawing home-schools.

Geesh!

Some, who were willing to share a little bit more information, were quite adamant about not keeping any records, and since it wasn’t legally required, they weren’t going to do it.  Many had religious reasons for this, and they’re entitled to have those opinions/reasons.

More time and money would have (eventually) overcome these initial concerns and suspicions, but we learned something else (we had not known) about home-schools:

Most parents quit.  Most parents don’t see their children through the equivalent of high school. At around the equivalent of the seventh or eighth grade, most parents bail/panic and enroll their children in a more traditional program (including home-based correspondence or on-line schools, where someone else chooses the curriculum, grades the papers, and keeps the records).  There were a number of reasons for this, but the main reasons were that it wasn’t as fun and freeeeeeee as it had been.  It started to get more difficult, and serious, and parents began thinking about what they were doing, and were uncertain that they had the ability to do all that was necessary to provide their child with high school (and middle school) level work.

That huge pool of potential customers, in the two to three million range, had collapsed to something closer (based on our revised estimates at the time), to about one to two hundred thousand (roughly 10% of the total pool).  The vast majority of home-schools were teaching only young children (say, to the age of 10 or 11).  The number of parents who stuck with it, when it got difficult, dropped precipitously, and parents abandoned the idea when it required that they actually take seriously their decision to homeschool.  Meaning (much to our shock and disappointment), when they actually had to behave like a serious school, and do serious work, they quit… because up to that point, they’d been goofing-off and screwing around.

There was no business there… and among that few hundred thousand was a substantially large pool of suspicious, religious-based home-schools, who had no intention of ever documenting a single thing.  They had no desire for their children to go on to college, or leave the farm, or plan for them to have the option to leave the hometown in which they lived.  They were more about closing doors for their children than home-schooling for the purpose of opening as many doors as humanly possible.

All the stereotypes of home-schoolers came home to roost.  Most weren’t serious, and those that were made up a small fraction of the larger pool.

Kim and I haven’t want to disclose this big, bad secret, because it would do a disservice to the minority of home-schoolers who do take their job seriously, and are committed and dedicated to providing to their children the best education possible.  If, however, parents are choosing to homeschool because they think that millions and millions of other parents are doing it successfully and well, they need to rethink that.  It is possible to do it well, but it is hard work.  It isn’t anything close to “fun” when it gets to the higher grades, and parents should know and realize that, before they decide to step on the home-school path.  It is rewarding, but it is hard.

It should not be inferred that parents who don’t take their decision to home-school and their statutory responsibilities seriously end up with young adults who have no ability to function.  Most home-schooled children, despite the ineptitude and inadequacies of their parents, still come out ahead of their public-school educated peers.  That, however, says more about how bad the public schools are, rather than how wonderful home-schools are.  You’d have to work hard at being worse than the public schools.

For those we talked to who were serious (and they are out there, they’re just more rare than we would like), they’d already figured out a method of record-keeping and documenting their lesson plans, so they didn’t feel the need to change it.  Some of these parents, the few we were able to find, were THRILLED with the service we offered, because it took most of the hassle and drudgery out of the task, but a few hundred customers could not support a business like ours… It would take years and years before the business model could be a successful one, and our money people demanded immediate profit.

Parents who start out home-schooling, and then quit when it gets difficult, put their children at a disadvantage.  It is not at all unusual for their children, once put in a traditional school, to have to repeat grade levels and work, to prove that they have completed the fundamentals.  This is made more difficult (and common) because the parents had not kept ANY records at all.  The parents who did keep records, didn’t put their children at this disadvantage.

In my next post in this series, I’ll detail how we and they did it.

Tasks so far:

1. Think clearly about your feelings about children and power.
2. Determine your broad educational goals for K through 12, such as those defined by Jefferson (What must they be able to do at “graduation”?)
3. Research the institutions available to you (including considerations of cost and location) to determine if there is an institution that matches the above.
4. Rethink your decision run a home-based school based on your dedication and willingness to live up to your statutory responsiblities.  If you cannot commit to 12 years of hard work, don’t do it.

Educating Your Children IV:  Course Design

Not all parents who home-school design their own courses.  Some use pre-packaged textbooks, with teachers’ guides and lesson plans, that do most of the heavy lifting.  Most textbooks and packaged curriculum are horrible, with a capital H, so some knowledge about how to do it yourself, even if only supplementing, is important to know how to do.  In this post, I’ll describe some of the major highlights of course design, and how that feeds into your record-keeping system.

(I do this for a living, although not in the educational institution arena. I could work in that arena, but I don’t. I am an instructional designer, by profession, but my customers have always been corporate, or equivalent.  The process is the same/similar, regardless of the audience/customer.  Other professional instructional designers may nitpick what I’m going to describe, but they should be aware that I’m speaking to a lay audience, and provide their nits with that perspective.)

As with most things, we have a what, why, when, and how scenario.  We need to define and expand, based on where we are in the process.  This method can also be used by unschoolers, post delivery, and I’ll note how to do that, and all parents (even those keeping to a rigid structure) will need to do and document some of that.

Let’s first define some of the terms I used above:

Student Textbook:  This the material the student receives.  It doesn’t have to be a textbook, per se.  It could be any source material that the student uses or receives, including workbooks, worksheets, books (such as literary selections), or something as mundane as Wikipedia.  This is WHAT you’re teaching and could be more loosely described as any reference source or course content the student uses or sees. If you were teaching a course on farming, the course materials would be your seeds, dirt, and shovel.

Teachers’ Guide:  This can be a printed book (and often is, if you buy a packaged course).  It is HOW to teach WHAT you’re teaching.  It teaches the teacher the subject matter and how to teach the course.  It generally contains important items, key points, methods, and additional background information (in case the student asks a question or wants more in-depth information to support a point).

Lesson Plan:  The lesson plan details WHEN you’re going to do X or Y, but it isn’t date specific (yet).  It is a guideline for timing, such as Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, or Week 1, Week 2, etc.  It says what a student should do at a particular time in the course’s duration, including lecture summaries, assignments, homework, quizzes, reviews, and tests.  It might look something like this:

Day 1:  Provide a general overview of the course, detailed on pages 7 through 10 of the Teachers’ Guide.  Introduce the textbook to the students, referring to pages 11 through 14 of the Teachers’ Guide.  Read aloud page 1 of the Student Textbook.  Explain the quiz methodology on page 2 of the Student Textbook, referring to page 15 of the Teachers’ Guide.  Allow students a minimum of 15 minutes to complete the quiz and then review answers as a group.  Assign pages 3 through 7 as homework.

The lesson plan can be as detailed and specific as above, or it could be a list of important points/highlights to cover about the material.  If a literary selection is going to be used as the student material, it could be a list of pages to assign each week, with discussions or exercises at the end, or during the reading assignment period.

In more generic terms, the Lesson Plan keeps the teacher honest, and it is like a tickler file for the teacher so they know what they need to know/prepare/do before they involve the student.

I am not suggesting (AT ALL) that a course you might design for your home-school get as detailed as the above.  I’m providing it as a guideline.  If you could write all of the above, I’d suggest you sell it to other home-schools to use.  As a home-school course designer, you’re doing these things at a much more summarized and higher level.  For most home-schoolers, the thing we’ll focus on the most is the Lesson Plan, because we’re using other materials as Student Workbooks.  There will often not be a Leaders’ Guide.  That you’ll have to do in your head, and will flesh-out when you do your Lesson Plans.

But we’ve gotten WAY ahead of ourselves… and that is what is most important to note.  We are going to end up with some combination of the above (in whatever detail is required to reach our objectives), but we don’t know what we’ll need until we define our objectives and what it is we want to teach.

Thinking about our end result, we need to define courses by some sort of broad title (we’ll categorize them next). This broad title may not be something the student ever sees, or knows about, because we might refer to things in a friendlier, less formal education-sounding way. This would include course names we all know:

• History
• English
• Mathematics
• Science
• Health
• Biology
• Social Studies
• Civics

What you’ll notice in the above list is that there is overlap.  Health and Biology are part of a broader umbrella of Science.  Mathematics is a broad category that includes basic arithmetic and advanced subjects, such as algebra, calculus, and trigonometry. 

Whole studies make this even more complicated, because in whole studies, we’re combing multiple disciplines into a macro-course.  For record-keeping (and sanity purposes) however, we need to keep them separate.  How we assemble the course (what we teach, how we teach it, and in what order) comes LATER.

From experience, you really need to start at this first step, thinking in broad strokes about individual disciplines and then categorizing them.  You might try to skip this first step, but I will guarantee that you’ll regret it, get frazzled, and get distracted.

We’ll start with the categories.

There are only a few, which makes our life a bit easier.  They are:

• Arts and Letters
• Sciences
• Life Skills
• Extracurricular

Next, we break it down a bit further:

• Arts and Letters


• Arts
• Letters
• Sciences


• Life Science
• Physical Science
• Life Skills


• Practical
• Foundation
• Extracurricular


• Sports
• Extramural/Volunteer Work
• Hobbies

We have the beginning of our transcript.  It sounds fancy-schmancy, but that’s the idea.  We’re using terms and words that are recognized by established educational institutions, because We R 1.

Now we can begin exploding some of the sub-categories.  Some may need sub-sub categories, and others not.  It doesn’t matter for the purposes of record-keeping (more on that later).

“Life Sciences” would expand to include Health, Biology, Ecology (if you were so inclined), Botany, etc.  “Botany” might be expanded to include “Farming” or “Gardening.”

“Physical Sciences” includes things such as Mathematics (broken down into Arithmetic and then advanced mathematics), Physics, Chemistry, etc.

“Arts” would expand to include dance, music, theatre/drama, and fine arts (which could be expanded to painting, sculpture, etc., and beneath that it could include under painting: oil, mixed media, water color, life drawing, etc.).

“Letters” includes anything with words, foreign or domestic, and is more broadly “Humanities” (call it that, if you prefer).  It would include English and Literature, which may be further divided into Writing, Grammar, etc., Foreign Language, which could be broken down by the specific language.  History, Culture, etc., also belong in this broad category, broken down further (if so desired) into Social Studies, Civics, Government, etc.  It would also be the place to include a broad category such as “World Religion” from a cultural perspective, as opposed to “religious studies” which belongs under the “Life Skills” category.

“Life Skills” is sort of like a dumping ground and can get a bit overwhelming.  Within “Practical” we’re including things that are job or career related, so they could include bookkeeping, statistics, diplomacy (which could include things like etiquette), home repair and maintenance, construction, plumbing, etc.  On the “Foundation” side, we would include things like Household Management (sewing, cooking, decoration, budgeting), Religious studies, etc.

Under the “Extramural/Volunteer Work” sub-category, this is where you’d keep track of things like clubs (Boy Scouts, 4-H) and could include church activities, such as volunteering at a soup kitchen.  The idea between separating “Extramural/Volunteer Work” and “Foundation” is one feeds the wallet, the other feeds the soul and is character building.

“Hobbies” can be ANYTHING and don’t discount the importance of keeping a record of these things. 

Activities in “Extracurricular” and “Life Skills” are often not included when calculating scores or grade point averages.  Think about that when you begin assigning courses to a category.  If they are scored at all, they are more often pass/fail, rather than letter-graded.

The above is not fixed in stone and you can define your categories in a way that makes the most sense to you, keeping in mind that the above was gleaned from extensive research of transcripts and record-keeping methods (as well as helping in course design).  You could spend WEEKS on the above, so don’t go too crazy.  You can redefine and expand your categories if you find that your initial structure isn’t working.  Working with your spouse on this may lead to arguments, so keep in mind that you might not immediately reach consensus and passive agreement.  Do your best.  You can also refer to college course catalogs, and model your list on what they do (but what you’ll find is that there are slight variations).

Have a good time if you decide to teach a course in “Earth Sciences.” The ridiculousness of that course heading will only become apparent when you try to place it in a category above.

Now we have our categories and can begin thinking about our broad course titles.  If we start with something like “English” then we have to think about what aspect, which is why the categories come in handy.  If we’re starting out with a young child, we’re going to be focusing on things like the alphabet, early reading (phonics), and penmanship.  If we’re focusing on an older child, then we’re going to be designing courses in sentence structure, forms of speech, more broadly under a “Grammar” heading, versus literature and writing prose or poetry.  With even older children, we’re teaching courses in Debate, Discussion, and Oration/Speech.  Use those sorts of titles to help you focus on your objectives and goals.

The benefit of a home-school is that we don’t have grade levels, necessarily.  You might have to adapt to a grade level concept, if you live in a state that regulates home-schools.  But even there, we have some fudge and fiddle room.  It is a good idea, however, to keep the transcript by year, noting the courses that are completed by some sort of annual designation.

That might be easiest to understand with a course for a yougin’ in “Beginning English.” That course might last three years, or you could (to make it a bit easier) break it into I, II, and III.  In the first course you’re working on the alphabet (recognizing letters and numbers) and early penmanship (which may involve tracing or drawing simple symbols as preparation for later drawing letters).  In II, you’re practicing the alphabet, drawing letters, and forming simple words.  In III, you’re focusing on early reading, and introducing sentence mechanics, such as periods, capital letters, etc.

There’s no deadline for any of that, but you want to keep progressing, and detailing that progress under major course titles… and this is where course design comes in.

We need a title for the course that we use.  For our transcript purposes, it would be recorded under “English.” Below “English” we have the courses listed that we taught that year as part of that year’s curriculum.  Your child may not know the official title you’ve recorded, such as “Introduction to the English Langauge I.” You will refer to it by something your child understands.  You might say “it’s time to practice your letters” so call the course “Letters,” and you file that in your category list where it belongs, under the more formal title, noting that it is part of “Introduction to the English Language I.” “Letters” is the friendly course title, but it belongs (for transcript purposes) under the category of “English.” That’s what outsiders would see if you produced a transcript.  If they want more detail, you’ll have that, too, which is where we’ll go next.

Now that we have a course called “Letters” we can begin defining what the child will have to accomplish to pass it, so we know when we’re done, and ready to move on to the next course.  These are referred to as “Objectives.” We begin writing our objectives with a broad goal, such as:

Course Name:  Letters
Course Title:  Introduction to the English Language I
Transcript Category:  English
Goal:  Recognition and replication of the letters of the alphabet and numbers
Objectives:

1. Say the letters of the alphabet in its spoken name and the sound it makes.
2. Recognize letters as the building blocks of words
3. Recite the alphabet
4. Draw the lower-case form of all letters, a through z, including the proper order of strokes and curves.
5. Draw the upper-case form of all letters, a through z, including the proper order of strokes and curves.
6. Draw the numbers zero through ten, including the proper order of strokes and curves.

That’s enough to illustrate the point and it doesn’t have to get any more complicated than that.  When the child is able to demonstrate that they can perform the objectives, they “pass” and they’re ready to move on to the next course.  As the school administrator, you note when they’ve mastered the content of that course, and can assign the child either a pass/fail or a letter grade to your record book.

It would be a good idea to document the above, say a single sheet of paper (or spreadsheet) to include the Course name, Goal, and Objectives, and then detail when the child started the course, the date they completed it, and the course grade.  You can file away the “tests” (which don’t have to be anything other than worksheets the child has used) in a folder with that same heading.  You would also note when they met an objective, in the detail lines for the class sheet.  If you were reading to the child, for example, and they were able to point out the name and the sound of a letter in a word, you would note on your record for that course the objective number and what date they completed it (because you have no other source document except the note of the date they performed it successfully).  Your sheet for each course could look something like this:

Course Name:  Letters Course Title:  Introduction to the English Language I Transcript Category:  English Goal:  Recognition and replication of the letters of the alphabet and numbers Objectives: Say the letters of the alphabet in its spoken name and the sound it makes. Recognize letters as the building blocks of words Recite the alphabet Draw the lower-case form of all letters, a through z, including the proper order of strokes and curves. Draw the upper-case form of all letters, a through z, including the proper order of strokes and curves. Draw the numbers zero through ten, including the proper order of strokes and curves. Date Objective Number Detail/Description Objective Complete Yes/No? Grade/Score Attached Yes/No? 5/6/2008 1 Spoke the letters A, B and C both by name and phonetically. No. 5/10/2008 1 Spoke the letters D through H both by name and phonetically. No. 5/31/2008 1 Spoke the letters H through Z both by name and phonetically. Yes. 100% No Course Start: May 1, 2008 Course End:  July 25, 2008 Final Grade/Score:  97% Notes:

With the above, you can keep track when each objective has been met, and the fact that they have all been met.

You don’t have to use a sheet like the above, but it helps to see your progress.  It will also blow the socks off of any school administrator, if you should desire to later enroll your child in a traditional program.  You’ll have proof that they’ve mastered subjects and won’t be required to repeat them.

Unschoolers or parents that haven’t been keeping records, can back into the above by writing it after the fact.  You might not record the details, but have start and end dates, with a final score/grade.

The final score/grade is noted on your transcript, which is kept (roughly) by year, either following a school fiscal date structure, or calendar year.  By keeping track of the courses in a transcript format, you can average a grade or score for each school year. 

The advantage of home-schooling is that we don’t stop a course until the child has reached “mastery” level, so they can always get A’s or 100%.  But be FAIR and responsible.  If your child hasn’t met the objectives, don’t give them a score of 100%.  Note those things they still need to work on to reach “mastery” level, and score them appropriately.  The next course in your series will include some review, so the child will have the opportunity to repeat and to master the content they’ve learned previously.

All of the above can be kept in a notebook.  The files of the child’s work don’t have to be kept, but it is fun for the child to see that their work has value (because you’re keeping it) and it also allows them to look back at their progress to see what they’ve accomplished over the years.

We can also back into a Lesson Plan in the same way.  Instead of recording when something did occur, we can create a list of what we’re going to do, and in what time frame.  That encourages discipline on the part of the parent and the child.  You should have some expectations of how long to allow a child to do something, and children desperately need to have a sense of accomplishment.  You may not like structure, but your child really needs to know that they’ve done something important, and can tick off a list of what they did during the day or week, even if you do it post task completion.

With older children, you might be designing a course in literature, and your Lesson Plan might be nothing more complicated than page assignments.  When the child has read the book, then you assign them a book report, or have a debate/discussion about the content.  Your student assignments are the version of the lesson plan the child sees (or is assigned):

American Literature I Student Assignments: 

Week 1:  Chapters 1 through 10 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Week 2:  Chapters 10 through 20 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Week 3:  Chapters 20 through 30 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Week 4:  Chapters 30 through 43 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Week 5:  Write a book report about Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Week 6:  Research the impact of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the critique of it at the time it was written.
Etc.

This is where it gets fun (and complicated).

In the above example we’ve designed a course in literature, that includes reading (say) 5 books in the next two or three months.  When the child has read the book, they’re assigned a book report to write or you have a debate/discussion about the materials.

From your perspective, that’s all one course.  It is a “whole studies” course (a “macro-course") and we might have a sheet, just for that course.  In addition to that, we have discrete subject courses ("sub-courses"), each with their own title, goals, and objectives.  The big course is cross-category (or more accurately “cross disciplinary"), but we’re not recording it as one course on the transcript. 

The child is, essentially, doing four or five courses at once, including writing, grammar, reading, literature, debate/discussion, etc.  When you record those on the transcript, you’re not recording it as one course.  You’re recording it based on the academic category list you created above, and you have goals/objectives for each individual course.  Those individual sub-course sheets are combined to make up your macro/whole studies course.  If the literary assignment was non-fiction, that could also blossom into a sub-course in culture, history, or social studies. 

A book such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has all sorts of branching opportunities, before or after the child as read the book.  It could lead to explorations into slavery, literary critcism, geography of the South, a study of the Indian tribes that lived in the region, etc.  Each of those other subjects are launched from the grounding provided in the book.  The idea is not to have a child read a book and then file it away and forget it.  The idea is to bring the book to life and to study the background and details.  For many of the classics, the heavy-lifting of course design is available on the Internet that you can use and incorporate into your “American Literature” type courses.

Your children might not see their transcripts until they’re much older.  It is a difficult concept and it is likely to confuse them.  But when they’ve reached the appropriate age, it is important for them to see what you’ve been doing, and understand that they (like their traditionally educated friends) have been taking English, History, Math, and Science, even though they’ve been doing it in a more whole-studies method. 

What your children do need is daily assignments (and I know that runs counter to what those who “unschool” prefer).  Your child needs structure and discipline.  No one, but a billionaire, goes through life without having assignments and tasks they need to complete each day. 

Children, as young as possible, need to begin practicing this, because instilling discipline later is harder.  Children need IMMEDIATE reinforcement.  A day or week later is too long (and with really young children, a hours is too long to wait).  If you begin the day with a list of assignments, the child can cross them off as they complete each one.  They can be generic, such as “writing, reading, gardening” but the child needs something to tick off, as a way of feeling like they’ve made a positive contribution to the day. 

More appropriately (for parents using a more structured method), this is where you list your lesson plan assignments for the child each day, combined with their daily chore list.  If the child doesn’t complete the task, it rolls over to the next day, reinforcing that you can’t escape a task by not doing it.  If you tie a reward/punishment structure to the completion of assignments each day, all the better.  The reward/punishment structure doesn’t have to be penury or difficult.  It might be that the child can’t watch TV or go out to play with friends until all the work is done.  If the child finishes early (or sooner than you planned) then allow the child the “reward” of more free time.

Some tasks will be time-assigned, such as “read for 30 minutes” instead of assigning specific pages.  You’ll have to closely monitor that, however, because children can get a bit lazy about that, and dilly-dally, and not make any significant progress.  If your child can generally read about 10 pages of a book an hour, then assign them pages, rather than a time. 

Children normally have issues with attention spans, and you’re helping the child to learn to focus on things longer term.  A child under the age of 5 may not be able to focus on any one activity for more than ten minutes.  Assigning them a task for 30 minutes is an unreasonable expectation and sets the child up to fail. Start with 10 minutes and then expand/adjust over weeks and months to stretch their attention spans a few minutes each day.

Using time-based assignments also helps to teach a child the concept of time, and develop an internal sense of time.  If you have a reading time (when you read to your younger children), set a timer and stop when the timer goes off.  Learning to sit still and pay attention is as important a lesson as learning about what is being read.  Don’t miss those opportunities to teach concepts and behavior rules with the same assignments.  Just don’t go nuts and have timers going off all the time.  That reinforces and creates attention-span difficulties.  Mix up assignments based on time and task completion.

Tasks that can be time-assigned might include flash card drills, reciting multiplication tables, music practice, or any on-going practice activity.  Assignments that are better served by task completion are worksheets, reading, writing, and creative tasks, such as drawing, dancing, or singing.

You know your child.  You will know if they have productive bursts throughout the day.  Generally, however, children do best when analytics are done early in the day… often first thing after breakfast.  Math is a good assignment to begin the day and reading is best at the end of the day, because it is a more passive, relaxed activity.  There is generally a period, mid-day, when they have a productivity fall (after lunch, generally).  That is a good time to assign more creative tasks, without so much brain power required. 

You can be flexible and that is where home-schooling is really beneficial.  You might have assigned pages 200 to 250 for the child that day, with the completion of book assigned to the next.  But the child might be absorbed in the book and want to complete the book.  Allow that flexibility and run with their interests and passions.  They just have to negotiate with you the task they’re not going to do, that will be pushed to the next day.

Other days, your child might be out of sorts, not feeling well, or just tired.  We all have good and bad days.  Allow for that, too, and come up with a method that allows you to push assignments forward a day or so, to allow a child to catch up on better days, or just extend the course a few days.  You can use a computer to generate the lists, pushing forward what wasn’t done.  You can also write out the assignments on index cards, which allows your child to move the cards from a “To Do” pocket to one that is marked with “Done” or “Completed.” That also allows a working parent to look through the pocket of “Done” items to praise the child for what they did that day, and have a method of being involved, even when they aren’t there during the day.

What you assign will be a mixed bag… a combination of chores, assignments, and spontaneous activities of the day. 

When you make dinner, for example, include your children in that task.  Don’t eliminate that as a learning opportunity and not record it on as “school” activity.  There is much course content to be found in ordinary things, and the retention of content learned is this way is not something to discount.  If a child is learning how to measure ingredients, double or triple recipes, divide cookie batter or slice a pie, they’re learning math concepts.  You can use these exercises as your “lecture” for arithmetic studies, and then design worksheets that allow the child to practice, outside of the kitchen. 

Setting the table is an opportunity to study culture, and setting the table the American way or the English way an opportunity for social and cultural studies.  Decorating the table when you’re preparing ethnic food, is also a great way to explore different cultures.

You could make cookies, for example, and then create a worksheet that asked the child to double the recipe and write down the new amount.  You could bake a pie and serve it, following up with an assignment to define how many pieces of pie you get with 2 straight cuts, 3, or 4.  Then expand on it, and ask the child to pick from a list of how to describe that piece of pie, such as one-fourth, one-fifth, and one-sixth.

When you make a sauce and it thickens, you are introducing your child to chemistry.  When the coals on the barbecue go from black to red, that is also science, and depending on what you discuss and include in that task, it might be part of an introduction to chemistry or physics. 

You could write the course sheet (goals and objective) as well as your Lesson Plans after the fact, because your failure to document something pre-performance should not be a deficit to your child.  The child has mastered a concept, skill, or completed a task, and that should be recorded (in educationalese) on their official record.

Everything you do at home is a learning opportunity.  You can design, build, and plant a garden, and later use those ingredients to prepare meals.  That’s a macro-course opportunity!  Art, arithmetic, life skills, and home management are all embedded in that activity.  You could spend days poring over garden books, and classic garden designs, introducing your child to the concepts of art, design, and architecture.  When you move to building it, you’re including math, because you’re using tools to measure and cut materials.  When you’re watering, you’re studying botany, and when you factor in the amount of water necessary, you’re introducing climatology.  You could test the soil!  When you cook those ingredients it is chemistry… which then leads to biology, because you can discuss and explore the nutrients, and how that food passes through the body.

You can eat an orange and use that as your “student materials” to introduce arithmetic, or use it as the basis for the fundamentals of geography (orange slices make wonderful examples of latitude).  Cut that orange horizontally and you have core samples and longitude.

Your job as principal, administrator, course designer, and teacher is to document your child’s activities in a manner that is professional and accurate.  If you think schools aren’t doing exactly that, you haven’t been paying attention!

Your child would be bored stiff if you made a point of telling them that they just completed an objective in geography by discussing the latitude of an orange slice, or the spheres of the whole fruit.  Don’t bother.  Just teach and record, and present them with assignments in child-appropriate language.  Design to your heart’s content, using the world and your daily life (and the library/Internet) as your course materials.  Follow up those tasks with worksheets and practice, putting into fixed terms and concepts what your child can practice, and master.

It sounds hard at first, because you have some structure to build, and discipline to establish.

In the next in the series I’ll explore learning styles and how you can know if what you’re doing is having a lasting effect, and when it’s time to change course.

Tasks so far:

1. Think clearly about your feelings about children and power.
2. Determine your broad educational goals for K through 12, such as those defined by Jefferson (What must they be able to do at “graduation”?)
3. Research the institutions available to you (including considerations of cost and location) to determine if there is an institution that matches the above.
4. Rethink your decision run a home-based school based on your dedication and willingness to live up to your statutory responsibilities.  If you cannot commit to 12 years of hard work, don’t do it.

New, from this post:
5. Design your category structure broadly, and then define it for each academic year.
6. Create your macro-courses, including your goals and objectives for mastery/completion by each academic subject/formal course title.
7. Use tools, tasks and ordinary home-based activities as the basis of your initial course designs, supplementing with worksheets and additional reading materials to reinforce the concepts learned.
8. Record, record, record what your child has accomplished and share their progress with them by allowing them to tick off assignments each day.

Educating Your Children V: Learning Styles

I’m going to mix up a few concepts and combine them under the heading “learning styles,” but they aren’t all the same thing, although the end result (for our purposes) lumps them all together.

First let me focus on learning styles a bit, to define what that means, and I’ll try to keep it simple.

Some people like to read books.  They enjoy the activity of holding a book, turning the pages, and reading in that way.  Other people enjoy books on tape, or reading an e-book.  The two actions, while similar in the outcome, are very different methods of getting there. 

If we expand that a bit, and focus on how people read, we’ll also find that people have different styles.  Some people read the first page of a book and the last, to see how it turns out.  To others, that would be like “cheating.” In addition, some people pick up a book and don’t put it down until they’re done, while others like to read more slowly, savoring each word and page.

Those are all examples of learning styles. One style is not better than another.  They’re just different.

In approaching how we teach then, we have to take into account how someone learns, based on the methods they prefer.  There are both environmental components (learned behavior) and genetic (assigned behavior/abilities) that play into it (and I’m not going to address intelligence, IQ, in any of this).

Older people, in general, grew up at a time when things were quieter.  They read more and were expected to read.  Younger people have grown up with television and are used to having things told to them (or read to them), with visual stimuli (pictures/graphics) to keep them focused.  The latter is not just television, but an entire world where we’re bombarded with moving images, accompanied by sounds (sound effects, music, and voice). 

This is best illustrated with music.  People over 50 grew up listening to music.  People who are under 40 grew up watching music, in music videos.  While older people might have gone to a symphony or watched a recording of a band or orchestra playing music, what they were watching was the musicians playing their instruments, not a novella-like story while the music played.

The various mediums have responded to these changes.  Films no longer have long cuts, with actors delivering soliloquies.  Instead, we have rapid cuts, short lines, and a focus on the facial expression and gestures of the actors. 

The other changing dynamic is special effects, but here we have a learned behavior based on expectations.  Folks who grew up watching Saturday serials were not distracted by the visible strings attached to the rocket ships.  The wobble of the hand-held string was not a distraction either.  They were absorbed in the story and the poor quality of the special effects did not break the veil of their suspension of reality… entirely.

The veil of reality was broken, however, and it is a very important distinction.  Let me switch focus for a bit to provide background on that.

Children learn to differentiate fantasy from reality.  They don’t come out of the chute with the ability to do it.  It is learned.  A cartoon to a child of 5 is neither fantasy nor reality.  It just is, because there is only what is to a child that age.  The monster who makes noises at night is real, even if the child never has visual proof that a monster lives under their bed or in their closet, because everything is real.  Everything in a young child’s mind is real.  It exists, so it is real.  Dreams are not illusions of the mind.  They are events, playing out in real-time to a child.  This is why they’re more susceptible to nightmares, because even when they wake up, they cannot differentiate what happened in real life, versus what happened only in their imaginations.

Using words such as “it’s not real” or “it was only a dream” to soothe a child who has had a nightmare are complex and sophisticated concepts.  We say them, but the child has not yet developed the language skills or the abstract knowledge to understand what they mean.  What the child knows is that they are being cuddled, soothed and protected, and whatever bad things happened in their dreams while they were sleeping, are not happening now.  It is the change in situation and our calming voices and actions, not the words we say, that help a child calm down after having a nightmare.

We help a child learn to distinguish between reality and fantasy by not making the monsters real.  For example, the worst thing a parent can do, if a child has expressed the thought that there is a monster under their bed, is to validate it.  Some parents will tell the child that they’ll look under the bed, and in fantasy-play, kill the monster.  That has validated the monster, and confirmed for the child that what was in their imagination is real, because their parent saw it.  What a parent must do is reinforce that there is no monster, and use words (that the child will come to understand) that reinforce that thought does not equal real.  There is no monster.

Many of us have had the experience of seeing a 3-D movie.  The audience will laugh when one of the shapes or characters comes towards us rapidly, and we move out of the way in response.  We laugh, because we know intellectually that nothing really came at us.  Our response was subconscious and instinctive and we laugh about being fooled and unable to overcome our instincts.  That’s as close as we come to seeing the world as a child does, unable to differentiate reality from fantasy, and responding to everything around us instinctively and subconsciously. 

3-D is very different from 2-D.  Our brains know the difference.  Our brains also know the difference between graphics and film, with film being closer to reality than video graphics.  Because the translations of pixels to images happens so quickly in our minds, we’re not necessarily aware that a translation has occurred, but it has.  Our brains know that when we look at a computer generated graphic image that it is a series of colored dots and lights.  Our brain translates what we’re seeing into the shapes represented, and then processes it based on similar shapes/colors that are stored in our memory and that exist in reality.  That nanosecond delay, while our brains are translating the images, clue us into the fact that it is not real.  What we’re seeing is not real life, but a representation of something unreal, ie, a fantasy.

This is why young children who watched Buck Rogers weren’t bothered by the wobbly space ships or saw the string tied to it as an indication that the space ship wasn’t real, and wasn’t flying into outer space.  First, they don’t know the difference between fantasy and reality.  Second, their brains have already adjusted to the fact that they’re watching a 2-dimensional image.  They’ve suspended reality intentionally. 

In essence then, we could better describe these actions as a willingness to be vulnerable… a willingness to be gullible.  Children love to do this, but aren’t making a choice to do it, as adults.  Adults choose to go with it and allow themselves to be carried away in a fantasy.  We’re willing to suspend belief, unless the suspension becomes too different from the reality we know.  When something happens in the broadcast of the film, such as the film breaking or scratches or distortions, children are more upset by that than adults.  Something has happened that forces the brain to focus on the fact that it is a 2-dimensional image, and the suspension of reality is lost. 

Many of us, as adults, love to watch films for children, because it allows us to remember the innocence of childhood, and to be carried away in that suspension of reality.  There was a liberty, of something akin to flying, and a freedom that existed in not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.  The world was full of greater possibilities...endless, floating, infinite possibilities.  Peter Pan was real and if we were lucky to have him visit us, we could fly to Neverland with him and Tinkerbell… and many of us sat by our windows to keep Peter-Pan-watch, not wanting to miss that chance.  We tried to stay awake on Christmas Eve, not wanting to miss the chance to see Santa.  We looked around for the Easter Bunny who brought us chocolate chicks and candy eggs.

As we got older, however, we stopped waiting for Peter Pan to come.  We had no expectation that we would ever take three running steps and be able to fly, and soar above the trees.  Our innocence was lost, and depending on how that sat with us, our desire to replicate that feeling as adults could be one of enjoyment and reminiscence, or something that we reject as childish and unappealing.

That is learned behavior and influences how we learn, and how we evaluate the effectiveness of a method that requires a suspension of disbelief or fantasy.  For people who do not like to suspend belief, analogies (unless practical and fixed in reality) will not help them learn a new concept.  They will be stuck on the fact that it isn’t real, so what does it have to do with something that is?

Similarly, some people are not easily manipulated by emotionalism or melodrama.  There is something akin to a switch in their brains, that they will turn off if they sense that their feelings are being manipulated.  For those people, any method that uses manipulation will be a turn-off, even if the skill or concept being explained in that way is valid.  On the flip side, there are people who prefer emotionalism and melodrama, and will choose learning methods that allow them to suspend reality, to become something closer to a “free thinker,” able to think out of the reality-box.  The downside of that, of course, is that they’re not always able to kick-start their analytics and see the faults in the fantasy… able to immediately recognize that something that may work in fantasy (or on paper), does not work in reality.  They’ll follow the fantasy path over the cliff, not wanting to lose the feeling of liberty in seeing the strings or the wobbles in the space ships.

Combined with the above, some of us are naturally more sociable, or desiring of social situations.  For people who are more shy and introverted, situations where they’re asked to speak, express their feelings, or share an experience will be painful to them.  Some of us may be sociable, but we have limits, and reject situations where our person or personal feelings are exposed.  Some children will want to perform--to dance, to sing, or play their instruments for us and Grandma.  Other children will abandon an instrument or any activity where they’re required to perform, because they’re shy.  They might like playing the piano, but they want to play only for themselves.  They may like to read, but don’t like to read aloud.  These attitudes can also be shaped by experience… if a parent mocks a child or laughs at them when they do something wrong/silly, they will balk at situations where they might lose face.  This is especially important if a child has siblings, and may recognize that their brother or sister does something better than they do.  They do not want to be reminded of that, and will avoid methods and situations when that may occur.  Some children don’t want to engage in an activity where they’ll lose/fail, and will suspend interest in any activity when they cannot control the outcome, or assure victory for themselves. 

So we’re all different.  We’re different in our gene mix, our learned behaviors, and our attitudes about emotions, reality, and fantasy.

When we go about trying to teach someone something, or explain something, we’re not always going to be successful.  We’re able to reach some people, but the exact same method may fall flat with someone else.  Our own attitudes about reality and fantasy, about emotionalism versus just-the-facts-ma’am, are going to color the way we choose to teach, and we’ll have difficulty understanding why someone else doesn’t have our same preferences, and learn in the same way.

For our purposes then, as home-educators, we have to accept that our children are not us.  They may not have the same learning styles as we do, or the same preferences.  For those of us who have had more than one child, we’re all too aware that what works for one child may not work for the other.  In approaching how we teach each of our children then, we have to apply that and accept that a brother may learn very differently from the way his sister learns.  Two sisters may not learn and share preferences.  Even the subjects that interest us will be very different.

It’s a mixed bag of genetics, preferences, and learned behaviors.

We want to create sparks for our children… for them to be passionate about learning.  They are.  With rare exception, children are passionate about learning… but they may not be motivated to learn in the same way we do.

Simply put, if a child is not passionate about learning a subject or what we’ve taught hasn’t stuck, it is because we haven’t packaged it in a way that is appealing to them and works with the way they work.  It is our job, as educators, to find a mix of packaging that works and find subjects that flatter the way their brain works.

In the next post, I’ll apply the science of learning retention to the above--what it is and how to measure it, which allows us to determine if what we’re doing is having the intended result.

There are no new tasks for this post, other than to think about how you prefer to learn and your learning styles… then to think about how your children may learn differently, based on observation.

Regarding the Education Series - Momentary Interrupt

I’m writing this series because it was the most common request I received when I asked for input.  It may not be exactly what people asked for, but that’s the danger of asking a question.  You might not always get the answer you wanted or expected.

Along the way, I’ve gotten additional emails about the subject, asking for input and advice, as well as suggestions for later topics.

As I see it now, I have about a dozen more posts to write in the series, with about 27 days of blogging left.  Please add in comments additional subjects or suggestions.  I may already plan to get there and cover it, but it never hurts to add your questions to the list.

Along those lines, I received this email, asking for some clarification.  I’ve deleted the personal details and am providing it as an example.  Reading it will give you a gist of what others have asked for, and may stimulate other suggestions.

Given that I have every intention of homeschooling through high school, what is your opinion on at what point the record-keeping should be taken as seriously as you say in your post?  My gut instinct is that it’s not that important until high school, since that is what college admissions people are going to want to see, but I’m curious what you think.

I also want your opinion on how old the kid should be before introducing a more structured study environment like what you’ve described.  My goal at this point has been to have the kids reading, writing, and doing basic math extremely competently by the time they are about 3rd grade level, while “ignoring” the rest of the subjects until then.  I almost feel like that is an early school “graduation” point, since I expect the structure of school to change dramatically then.  Now, they get impromptu lessons in EVERYTHING, science, geography, history, you name it, just because they ask questions and we discuss random things in the course of daily life.  But none of it is formal yet.

Right now, I tell my son he has to do two things a day, and he gets to pick those things.  His options are read a book that’s appropriate for his level, do some math workbook pages, do some spelling/grammar workbook pages, or do some writing.  If he chooses the same thing too many times in a row I make him switch it up, but that is rarely necessary.  It’s pretty unstructured, but he enjoys it, and he’s doing VERY well with it.

Last week, I realized that he’s at a second grade level in reading and math, and in a normal school, he’d be in his second month of kindergarten.  I don’t push him, other than to make him aware that slacking off is not acceptable.  His spelling is still atrocious, just because there are 4 letter combinations that make the same sound and there is no rule for what to use when, he just guesses.  Everything he writes is phonetically correct, so really he just needs to practice and memorize.  I’ve been steering his workbook choices toward spelling practice, just because those skills are a bit behind the rest.

I’ll revisit the above and your suggestions as I go forward with the series.  I’ll try to answer the above type stuff in the series to give my opinion/recommendation.  Nothing I am writing should be taken as Gospel.  What I’m including is based on my experience, my research, and my profession… but your mileage may vary!

Educating Your Children VI:  Learning Retention

I am hoping that this post on learning retention will resolve some of the outstanding questions on course design and learning styles.

Learning retention is, by definition, actual learning… the content has been stored in the brain for later use, and the skill mastered.  Most content we teach in a traditional method is not retained, roughly 75% at any one sitting is lost/not remembered.  The art of teaching is to improve those odds, but we have to know (at any given time) what has been remembered and what has been forgotten.

In looking at the raw statistic (that we forget about 75% of what we’ve been taught), it should not be applied to the universe.  We should not, for example, take that statistic and assume that we forgot 75% of what we learned in Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade (K-12).  The reason is that K-12 is not a series of new learning and new subjects taught each year.  It is highly repetitive.  We may forget 75% of what we learned in one year, retaining about 25% of it, but when we repeat the content in the next year, we retain more of it. We may forget 75% of what we learned last week, but if we repeat the same content the next week, we’ll retain more of it. 

The easiest way to understand that might be with a picture.  If we think of the graphic below as the universe of knowledge we’re supposed to have learned when we graduate from high school, what we learn in any given year is a partial repeat of what we’ve learned before.

Although our progress is slow, with much repetition, the line is moving forward. 

It is possible to improve those odds, based on the methods we use. A good multimedia training program (as an example) can increase retention to about 70%.  It is also possible to do worse, and traditional lecture training ("stand up” or “platform” training in my professional lingo) has about 5% retention.  The 25% figure is an average, but if the methods used most frequently are those with lower retention, the average retention will be lower.

There are a few important wrinkles in all of the above and make up the list of known facts (from a discipline perspective) about how we learn:

1. Recall:  Remembering something in one setting does not mean that we will remember it in another setting, where it may be useful or applicable.
2. Long-Term Retention:  Remembering something short-term does not mean we’ll remember it long-term.
3. Prior Knowledge:  Someone may have already known something before we teach it to them, so the fact that we have taught it and the student is able to demonstrate mastery of it, does not mean we’ve done anything successful.
4. Prerequisites:  Adults never learn anything entirely new. Our brains are only capable of learning a new wrinkle on something we already understand (after about age 5).
5. Application: The ability to apply something we have learned in one context/method for one (or more) application, does not mean we’ll be able to automatically apply it to another application, unless we understand it fully.
6. Not all knowledge is useful or applicable, even if it may be interesting.

The way we are able to evaluate how well we’re doing, what we should be doing, and how well the student is doing is by testing.

Keep in focus that I’ve described three aspects of learning that we test:

1. How well we’re doing as educators.
2. What we should be teaching.
3. How well the student is doing (what they’ve retained)
.

What is also critically important to understand is that “testing” does not always mean a test, such as we might think of a final exam (administered with formality, with examination books, multiple choice questions, or essays).  “Observation” is just as viable and reasonable a method of testing as any other, as long as the observer knows what they’re doing, and is honest.  The key word we use in the instructional design realm is “demonstrate.” A student must demonstrate that they’ve mastered a concept or skill.  How they demonstrate that determines the type of testing method/instrument we use.

Before I expand on testing and how to do (and which method/instruments to use), I want to switch gears and present another concept I mentioned above, prerequisites.

Let’s say that you wanted your child to be able to use reference materials effectively, such as an encyclopedia, dictionary, or atlas.  Would you begin teaching a toddler to do that, before the child knew letters or words?  I hope not, because it would be a complete waste of time.  The child might be able to mimic the use of those tools and say their titles, but the child has not mastered their use.  It is literally a “monkey see, monkey do” situation.  Children want to please us, and will repeat the behaviors, but they haven’t really learned anything they can use or apply. 

In addition, the ability to categorize is something toddlers don’t understand, even if they are early readers or talkers.  Categorization skills is a basic foundation skill to many other subjects and is why we give children building blocks of different sizes and shapes to play with, and why we look at picture books of (say) animals.  It is why we give them puzzles, so they can begin to understand that pieces (or discrete elements) can be assembled into a new entity, which is a “whole.” It is why we read them stories about animals and human families, so they can understand (and have language) to begin to describe discrete categories.  It is why we read endless stories about puppies and adult dogs, so they can understand that “dogs” can look different, even if we categorize them the same, and have different words to denote sub-categories of major categories. 

Puppies are baby dogs.  Dogs are animals.  Jumpers is a mommy dog.  She has 4 puppies, Jasper, Spot, Rex, and Fluffy.

Understanding the plural form of words is also a requirement to understand categorization. 

I have a family.  I have a brother, who is in my family.  I have sisters, who are in my family.  I have a mommy and a daddy.  They are my parents.  I have a grandmother, who is in my family, but does not live with us.

Reference book usage requires an understanding of those abstract concepts, as a prerequisite.

In that example, I’ve intentionally used an obvious example of teaching a concept too soon, before the prerequisites have been mastered.  Other examples are not as easy or as obvious.  Our teaching method may be marvelous and our student attentive, but our student is not able to learn the concept (yet). Another student, taught in exactly the same way, who has the prerequisites, will master the concept… It is (therefore) critical that we are careful in evaluating our teaching method and effectiveness to ensure that our student was “learning ready” for what we teach.  Similarly, we have to be careful about making judgments about our student’s ability to learn something, if they lacked the perquisites.  If we have not provided the prerequisites, the “F” grade we apply to the outcome should be recorded to the teacher, not the student.

In general, if a student is unable to demonstrate mastery (and we will assume that they do not have behavioral issues that would be a hindrance and we did a reasonable job at teaching) it is because they did not have the necessary prerequisites.  It isn’t what we taught or how we taught it that failed, nor was it (necessarily) the student’s failure to apply themselves.  It is when we taught it that was in error.

* * *

Time for a few anecdotes.

My daughter was convinced that she was terrible at math.  She always got A’s or B’s, but when arithmetic advanced to mathematics (pre algebra), she started to have a hard time.  Had she hit a wall?  Had she reached the end of her mathematics ability?  This occurred at about the same time we started to home-school her.  I watched her “attack” method.  Her attack was flawless, but her answers were wrong.  In reviewing her problem, it had nothing to do with her ability to understand and apply pre-algebra concepts.  It was because she was using the wrong answers to multiplication.  We worked on her multiplication tables (reciting them).  In the interim, I gave her a piece of paper with the multiplication tables.  Then she was able to get solve the problems correctly.

Our middle son thought he had an interest and aptitude for science subjects.  He had also been told he had an aptitude for it.  He was using a biology textbook, and moving through the course at a steady pace. 

Our rule was always that a chapter test of 100% was required before they could move on to the next chapter, so he’d “mastered” everything as he moved through the chapters. 

We took a break from biology (don’t remember why and it isn’t important) and he had to go back to the biology textbook, after about three months of ignoring it.  We couldn’t remember where he’d left off.  What we always did when (when we got a new textbook) was to start with the chapter tests.  Rather than going through each chapter, our kids could “test out” of some of them.  If they could get 100% on a chapter test, then they didn’t have to ready/study the chapter.  They started the textbook at the chapter where they were unable to get 100%.  That’s what we’d have to do with the biology book.  So, son set about to take the chapter tests.  He was a bit perturbed that I demanded that he start at chapter 1 and was shocked, knowing that he’d gone through at least the first 6 chapters at 100% previously, that he wasn’t able to pass the tests, even the first chapter.  And when I say he couldn’t pass, I mean that he failed miserably.  His percentage of correct answers would have been higher if he’d thrown a dart.  The only answers he was able to come close to getting correct were multiple choice, but any testing methodology that demanded complete mastery was about 10% correct. 

Why? he asked.  Was he dumb?

This child had been in traditional school longer than our other two children (good reason, not relevant).  He had learned to fake it, as most traditionally-educated children do.  He’d learned to read textbooks with an eye for the questions that might be asked on a test.  He had taught his brain to learn for short-term only, because he had never been back-tested in the way we were testing him. 

The general rule for retention is a month… if someone cannot pass the same test a month after passing it before, true learning has not occurred.  The person was able to retain the content for a short time only, and then it was forgotten.  Application and practice can improve that, but students who have been traditionally educated with tests immediately following the learning (and no delayed and follow-up testing) do not develop the skills and methods of long term mastery, ie, real learning.

Do you like biology… does it interest you? we asked him.  It took a while to get at the truth, because somewhere in his mind he had gotten the idea that we’d be disappointed if he didn’t.  In addition, the idea that he would have a career in one of the sciences had sort of been decided for him, or he thought that to be the case.  He had also done well in science subjects when at a traditional school, and it was a source of pride for him (but it also was a way that he kept his grade point average up against subjects where he did not excel).  It was eventually made clear that he had no interest in the subject at all… in fact, it bored him to tears.  The admission of that, however, would require that he go back to the drawing board on career possibilities, and the Gantt chart of his life (the one he carried around in his hand), had to be redrawn.  It was at that time that we administered an entirely different series of tests… aptitude and preference tests.

Aptitude and preference tests are similar, but not exactly the same.  There is overlap on what we do well with what we like.  Duh! We like doing well at things and we do well at the things we like, but they don’t always correlate so perfectly.

What became clear in the aptitude tests for this boy was that what he had been doing well in, grade-wise, was exactly the opposite of his aptitudes and interests.  He thought he would be a man of science, but what became (all too clear) after taking these tests, was that he was destined to be a man of letters.  But he couldn’t read.

He could read, technically, but that was another subject that is not (normally) a focus in traditional schools.  They work on the mechanics of reading, but not the art of reading.  His reading was at about a 4th grade level (and he was at about the 9th grade, age-wise, when we tested him), but his interests for careers with Letters as the backdrop, were as high as they could be.  He shied away from Letters subjects, not because he had no interest in them, but because his complex analytical skill with reading was behind, as well as his concentration skills (overlap in both of those).

We spent the next two years doing little besides reading… and that was a HUGE challenge.  He resisted it at every turn, using every excuse under the sun to avoid it.  We began by allowing him to read anything, with only a half hour a day spent on reading important literature. The only subject that we required he also maintain was math (where he had both interest and aptitude).  It took two years, but he was finally able to focus his brain, to understand the concepts of what he was reading (and retain them and discuss them) and then (as they say), living was easy. 

This was a child who had mastered the art of passing multiple choice tests, and they had become a crutch that he would no longer be allowed to use.  Every test moving forward was either an essay or a discussion, where he had to express whole thoughts, make logical connections, and demonstrate mastery of language in writing and speaking.  There, too, he attempted to fool us (silly rabbit), by inserting personal style and humor in his writing, with smart-alecky retorts.  No style.  No humor.  Present facts and logical conclusions only, focusing on grammatic structure.  Only when you can do that will you be allowed to insert your style and personality into your writing. You’d have thought we were torturing him, and in a way we were, but it was a hurdle that he had to overcome… and he had to re-teach his brain to work in a new way… and that’s hard.  It would have been easier for him had he never learned the bad habits he’d acquired in traditional school, but that was the boy we had to work with.

Before I move out of anecdote mode, let me share that this boy, the one who could not and would not read, is now pursuing a career in [drum roll]… Philosophy (goal: college professor).  His aptitude and interests merged into a passion.  Now we can’t get him to STOP reading.  He grabs a philosophy book off the shelf to amuse himself, and casually reads a few chapters of complex philosophical writing as “pleasure” reading.  Math (logic), an interest in culture/religion (social anthropology), leadership (social relationships and empathy) and literature combined IS philosophy.  It couldn’t have been more obvious, except that he had not been able to read properly. 

I mention these anecdotes to demonstrate that testing can be tricky and infinitely valuable.  Sometimes the results will not be what you or your student expects, but you must respond to what they’re telling you.  Often, you’ll have to peel the onion, and keep peeling it, until you find the wall/obstacle that is preventing your child from moving forward.

With some children, however, there comes a point where you can’t find a root cause and you have to accept that they’ve hit a wall.  That might be a temporary wall, or one of lack of aptitude or intelligence.  You must, however, educate the child you have, not the one you hope you had, or the one you hoped he would be.  We’re not all of superior intelligence.  We’re not all physically gifted.  We’re not all good at everything.  Your job is the figure out what your child is capable of doing, what they’re good at and they like, and to do whatever is required to help them reach their potential. 

* * *

Now let’s talk about testing.

If you’re working with a younger child, you might be focusing on letter recognition.  Can your child identify and say all the letters?  That’s a test.  You don’t have to drill the child to find out.  The best method is to observe and pay attention.  You just have to write down all the letters and quietly tick off the letters your child has identified correctly or incorrectly.  If they got it right once, but got it wrong later, it was a guess, so don’t mark it off as done.  At some point, they will have mastered all the letters, and you’ve tested it (by observation and informal discussion).  You can use a hash-mark method to keep track of the right and wrong attempts at recognizing letters.

You might be working with an older child on literary criticism and analysis.  Read the book you’ve assigned the child to read, then ask a simple and straightforward question, “So, tell me about the book?” Ask additional questions to advance the discussion, such as “Why did he do that?”, “What did he do there?” or “Where did he go then?” That is referred to as passive inquiry.  You’re continuing to ask questions that are non-judgmental, but show your continued interest (to keep the person talking).  Be careful not to lead the witness by asking loaded questions such as “Why would he do something as wrong as that?” or “When he went there, what did he find?” Those imply the answer you’re wanting to hear in the question, and redirect the conversation.  You can also ask prodding questions (especially with classic literature that has a moral/character building purpose), “Have you read another book that is similar to this one?” or “Was that character’s struggle similar to any other you’ve read?” The most telling questions involve before and after scenarios, such as “Describe who he was when the story began, and who he was/what he believed when the story ended.” “What events influenced those changes?”

When evaluating how well your child is able to read (once beyond the mechanics), you’re not as interested in what, where, when as you are in why and how.  Understanding the character’s motivations and influences is the second tier of reading comprehension… one of understanding the story in principle, rather than in details.  Remembering and reciting dates, character names, towns, etc., are not important in literature studies. (It is more relevant in historical studies, but not as important as public schools teach.)

After the child is able to demonstrate they can understand literature by discussing it, then you can move on to having them write about it.  If you have them write about it too soon, they’re likely to develop the habit of what, where, when in their writing style (and those are superfluous facts, not the meat of the story).  Focus on the moral of the story, why a character did what he did, not what he did, and what he learned that altered his attitude and behavior.

In testing fixed answer subjects, such as definitions, mathematics, spelling, etc., these are best tested with traditional testing methods.  Even with something like mathematics, however (as my anecdote illustrated), getting the wrong answer doesn’t mean they don’t understand the inherent concept.  If the child scores badly, then you’ll have to switch to observation testing to see where they’re making the errors.

Many people knock rote memorization and the ability to recite memorized details, such as poetry or arithmetic.  (They’re daft and don’t listen to what they have to say.) There is a benefit to training the brain to remember (it is a muscle that increases in strength through exercise), and some things ARE recalled abstractly and by rote.  Throughout our lives we are able to recall what six times six is, and we have to be able to pull that fact out of thin air.  We have to be able to recall what two plus two is, without performing a calculation to get there.  We’ve memorized the answer and don’t perform arithmetic to recall it.  We use that recall to process other calculations… we can figure out 400 x 4 (in our heads) by reducing the 400 to 4, and recalling our answer (16) and then add two zeros to it (1,600).  Without the ability to remember and instantly recall 4 x 4, every calculation has to be performed on paper, or with a machine.

We do the same thing with many words when we read.  The, then, a, I, if, when, etc. become symbols and we don’t literally read them when they appear (they become something akin to hieroglyphics).  We skip reading them and focus on reading the less common words we haven’t memorized as a shape.  There is a benefit, then, to flashcard approaches to reading, especially with children who are reading. 

There is a silly test to see if a child is actually reading or if they memorized the shapes of some words.  Ask them to count the number of F’s in a paragraph.  If they miss some, it means they skipped over words they no longer see as words.  That’s not a bad thing, and the purpose of testing it is not to force them to see the F’s they’ve missed.  The purpose is so that we can properly evaluate their reading speed (if it is too slow for their development).  If they do not skip some of the F’s, that means they’re still reading every word.  That’s the time to introduce a flashcard-approach for those simple words.  We want children to read words until they get beyond basic reading skills, but after they’ve done that, we want them to memorize some words as shapes/symbols.  There are other tests you can to do help with that development.

A word bag game is a good way to teach and test word mechanics and sounds.  Write word endings on a piece of paper (or an index card), such as -at, -og, -oy.  Have the letters of the alphabet on other pieces of paper… another set of cards (keep them separate from the word endings).  The child is asked to pick a word ending from the word-endings paper bag.  They need to read it (say it out-loud).  Then they pick letters from the alphabet bag to see if they can make a word.  If they’ve picked “-at” as the word ending, they attempt to make words by putting a letter in front of it.  C becomes cat.  B becomes bat.  If they pick D, they’re still asked to read it, but told it isn’t a word.  The new words they make are written on a new card and put into a third, “Words” bag.  The words bag becomes a way of building flash cards for practice.

There are a number of observable tests occurring in the above game:

• The ability to read words out of context, or not memorized, is being tested.  Children will often memorize their favorite books and might be able to discern words by memorization and aren’t really reading.  Testing their ability to read in the abstract is an important benchmark. 
• Letters can have different sounds, depending on the word (such as a hard or soft C).  This gives the child the opportunity to practice saying the letter different ways to make a word connection.
• Their ability to read the words they’ve made is being tested, to determine if they’re parroting, or if they’re really reading.

As the child advances, the “new words” bag will grow.  The 3-letter words they’ve mastered can be removed from the deck, once they’ve demonstrated that they can read them with ease (note hash-marks on the back of the cards, as your child reads them correctly--after 3 correct attempts, without an error, they’ve mastered the word).  When they’ve mastered 3-letter combinations, you can advance to four (-ite, -ipe, -ape, -ake, etc.).  You can later introduce diphthongs to the endings bag (-oin, -ouse, -one, etc.).  Your alphabet bag can grow to include multi-letter combinations, such as th-, tr-, and sh-.

The game becomes a learning and a testing method.

If you are also working on writing letters and words (after the child has mastered the prerequisites), the child can make the new flashcards, or make a wall-chart of all the words they know.  Rewarding them with praise, such as “you learned 15 new words today!” are great ways to keep them interested.  (And don’t forget to count the words in the word bag, reinforcing their ability to count).  You can also reward in a tit-for-tat method, such as a penny for every new word, or a minute of TV time for each word, etc.

A child that has played a game like this can be introduced to games like Scrabble, which will reinforce the concepts.  If a child has siblings, they can play it with each other or at the same time, each having their own word bag, for testing and scoring.  They take turns being the teacher and the student, giving the “teacher” the chance to practice/reinforce what they’ve learned.

Everything your child does can be an observable test, for the purposes of determining their retention.  With repetitive exercises, such as the word bag, you can validate that a child can still read the words a month or more later, which is the demonstration of mastery… and real learning.

Cognitive Learning

As I mentioned earlier, the ability to express a fact in one context, does not mean that it can be applied in another context.

Some years ago there was an elaborate validation of a medical school (and the methods used in medical schools, in general).  What they found was that there was no relationship between a medical student’s ability to do well on tests and their ability to use that information with a patient.  There was no correlation between good and bad doctors, based on academic scores.  A medical student might be given a written test that asks them to diagnose a condition, based on a list of symptoms, and do quite well on that test… but when a patient tells them those same symptoms, they’re not able to make the same, simple diagnosis.  The medical student might know that the occurrence of conditions A, B, and C generally means X, and can be confirmed with a particular test, but they cannot do this when a patient is sitting in front of them. This is because the environment has changed, and the way the patient is providing the information is not the same as the test.

Many studies confirm this.  If someone is standing on a beach and told to remember 10 abstract words, they are able to do it, as long as they stay on the beach.  If asked to do it again, say 30 minutes later, their retention is still high.  But if that person is taken into the water, their retention drops.  If they put on a snorkel and swim, it drops further still.

This is because of the way our brain stores information.  We attach an index to what we’ve stored, based on where we are and how we use that information.  If the environment changes, that index is no longer applicable, and we’re not able to recall it.  This is also why we can get on “information overload.” We have to file what we’ve learned and we also have to make our indexes.  We might do the file part, but our index was not completed before our brain had to switch to filing again.  Learning must happen in the right dosage, or what we’ve learned cannot be recalled.  Periods of repetition (saying nearly the same thing more than once) slows the process, and allows the person to make sure they filed the facts correctly, and have a chance to build their index to it.

This means that it is very important that we learn to do something when it is useful to know it, such as learning fractions by doubling a recipe in the kitchen.  Someone may be able to do it successfully (and flawlessly) in the kitchen, but when given the same problems on a math test, they’ll fail it miserably. 

This comes up in the corporate training realm quite frequently… where someone is able to demonstrate they understood a concept or a task by reading about it in a written manual, but they aren’t able to perform the task once they get back to their desks or workstation.  This is because the environment changed, ie, the context changed. 

To combat this problem, we use case-study approaches, or self-study (where the person goes through the material at their desk or workstation).  Rather than having a medical student diagnose on written tests, they’re taught through case-study approaches, with someone playing the role of the patient, reciting a litany of complaints. 

Since we have the tendency to forget most of what we learned, practice and reinforcement is necessary.  It is not unusual, for example, for someone learning how to use Microsoft Excel, to learn how to amortize a mortgage, but if they never use that in their work, they will have forgotten it, as well as the mechanics of creating formulas in Excel because the case-study was irrelevant to them.  What is taught, the examples we use, have to be a close to real life as we can make them; otherwise, we’re just wasting the student’s time.

Timing is also important.  If someone is being taught how to use Excel, but it will be six months before they’ll need to use it, the student will forget everything they’ve learned, because they had no practice and reinforcement (in their work environment) immediately following their training.  People can translate knowledge from one environment to another, or from one application to another, but that reinforcement must occur within a week or two from learning it, or it is lost.

This is why “whole studies” in the educational arena are so important and valuable.  Learning about fractions, while applying that learning, adds relevance and importance, as well as the ability to recall the rules when needed.  This is also why we need to move the knowledge out of the classroom, and into the real world, as soon as possible.

A child’s ability to score high on a written test on fractions does not mean they’ll be able to easily perform the same skill when asked to double a recipe in the kitchen, or add two measurements together when building a raised-bed garden.

A group of children, sitting in a traditional classroom, are not all “learning ready” for what they’re being taught.  Some will have some or all of the prerequisites and some will have some or none.  This is why the traditional classroom is boring, much of the time, and why learning in that environment must be so repetitive (more so than your home-school).  It’s a hit or miss approach in a traditional classroom, and the teacher cannot know what took, or spend the time to observe what might be missing for one child, to get them over an obstacle.  In addition, most of the learning that occurs in the classroom is abstract, in a textbook or lecture form.  This reduces retention dramatically.  Homework is supposed to change that dynamic, but very often the homework is badly written, or doesn’t reinforce what was presented (the teachers have been told they have to assign X number of minutes of homework each night, so they do, but they’re often clueless as to why they’re supposed to do it, or how to design homework assignments that are useful).  As a home educator, you don’t have those problems.  You can repeat something until your child masters it and then move on.  You can teach something when your child has the prerequisites, not waiting until an entire classroom is ready, or teaching something too soon.

All of this is why home-schooled children appear to learn things more easily and with better mastery (higher retention), because the learning has been customized to them (what they’re being taught, how it is being taught, the increased opportunities for real-world practice and replication, and when it is being taught).  A child in traditional school is taught arithmetic for six years, but the entire subject can be taught to a child who is “learning ready” in as short as two months, with application and constant practice.  Do not think, for a moment, that you should replicate what occurs in a traditional classroom.  You don’t need to spend six years teaching a child to do arithmetic.  Start it when they’re ready and they show an interest, and then it can be done quickly.  Repeat it to reinforce and strengthen memory, not because it takes long to learn the basic concepts.  If it is taking a long time or the child isn’t retaining what they’ve learned, they’re not learning ready.  Stop and wait for readiness.

As a home-educator, all of this creates a problem for you.  Your child, especially if you want to make them college-ready, will have to be able to do well on written/formal tests, where learning is random and abstract.  In addition, you want them to have knowledge that is useful, practical, and applicable.  This means that your child will have to do both.  You can use whole studies approaches, but follow-up with written tests.  The ability to do one does not guarantee the ability to do the other, unless you practice both.

In the next post in this series, I’ll re-cast the last three posts (learning styles, course design, and retention) in a let’s put it all together now.  I’m working on improving YOUR retention of what you’re being taught… first establishing the prerequisites, and then repeating it in a case-study approach...and now you know why.

Educating Your Children VII:  Curriculum Recap

In the last three posts in the series I talked about curriculum, testing, and learning styles.  I did this from the perspective of creating your own courses.  The real benefit of understanding these components is in evaluating the courses designed by others, and being able to execute what others have done.  We have a lot of hours in each learning day, and we need to fill it.  But with what?

In my profession there are lots of “trainers.” Lots of people think they can teach.  It’s not that difficult, really.  If we go with the broadest definition of education, it is the transfer of knowledge, but how effectively we do it is where we separate the novices from the pros.  Also in my profession there are lots of people who think that being able to entertain a classroom of students, to get them to like them, or keep them from falling asleep, is the mark of a “good” trainer/teacher.  It is no such thing.

Most folks have attended some sort of training class.  At the end of the session, the trainer will hand out a course evaluation sheet.  These are usually a single page with questions such as, “Did the trainer demonstrate they understood the course content,” “Were the materials well organized” or “Was the classroom comfortable.” Training organizations often evaluate the trainer based on these evaluations.

In the training world these are called “Smile Sheets.” They have no purpose other than to judge how popular and friendly the trainer was.  They serve no educational purpose whatsoever and do not test anything important.  The only important measurement is if the trainee is able to do what was taught, and we won’t know that with any certainty until they leave the classroom, and go back to their jobs to demonstrate they’ve learned what was expected of them.  You don’t have to “like” your teacher for them to be effective, nor does the “comfort” of the training room mean that knowledge transfer occurred.  But because these are often the only testing instrument used to evaluate the trainer, trainers know how to get high scores on these evaluations.

Similarly, when you evaluate your child’s progress in home-school, often parents will judge their effectiveness by how happy or attentive their children are.  This, too, has no educational purpose.  That is not to say that a happy and attentive child is bad thing, only that it is separate from our effectiveness at teaching to the goals and objectives.

A related problem occurs when a person is very knowledgeable about the subject matter.  Just because someone is smart, it doesn’t mean they’ll be able to communicate that knowledge to someone else.

Because of the variables of the learner, however, determining how well we’re doing as educators can be difficult to gauge, so we fall back on irrelevant, dipstick measurements.

Studies like this tell us that, as a whole, home-schoolers are doing an excellent job.  Right?

Wrong.

What those studies tell us is that home-schooled children do better than their public-educated peers.  The comparison is not against how well a child should be doing, or what they’re capable of doing.  Given that home-schoolers are going to be a mixed bag (some great and some terrible), the fact that they are doing better (as a whole) than their public counterparts, is only proof of how really terrible the public education system is.

A typical learning day in the public realm contains two hours of actual education.  Lesson plans and schedules are based on the two-hour benchmark.  The other four or five hours a child spends in school is time spent going from class to class, taking roll, or having lunch and snacks.  There is a considerable time spent on classroom overhead. 

The other dynamic, as we explored in other parts of the series, is that the two hours of learning that day might be for the slow-learners, or a review of something taught previously.  The net time, when something new is taught, will be closer to zero minutes.  Children are held back by their peers and classroom overhead.  Worse, children are told that they’re in school to learn, and the inventory of what they learn each year is the benchmark of their achievement.  They’re being taught that learning very little makes them a good student and “smart.”

What studies like that also show is that home-educated children are generally one to two grade levels above their public educated peers.  Take out the overhead and wasted time, and the reasons for this are not difficult to understand.

If a parent, for example, were to spend one hour of quality teaching time with their children each day, with a careful balance of review and new content (based on knowing what the child already knows), the child is almost guaranteed to be above the grade level of their public educated peers.  Meaning, you can practically do nothing, and still do better.

We need to be better than that. We also need to be confident that even if we do a terrible job, our children will still be better off.

You can buy boxed curriculum.  I’ve known a number of home-schoolers over the years who have.  I didn’t actively participate in a lot of homeschool groups (I’m not by nature a joiner), but through a variety of methods, I talked to quite a few.

It’s a totally mixed bag in terms of method and curriculum choices.  Some I would not replicate. Most people buy curriculum packages when they start out.  There are a number of them available, and most have support groups on the Internet.  Most home-schoolers will also share (once you get to know them) that they bought a number of packages, only to abandon them.  Most are boring or more closely replicate the overview learning methods chosen by public schools. 

What many in the home-school realm seek out are old textbooks--materials written before 1950, after which the educational system became the bastion of nincompoops and social re-engineers.  A 1920s arithmetic book will be much more effective than the colorful, maudlin textbooks you’ll find today.  The child’s progress through these old materials will be quick, because the superfluous content and “busy work” included to keep a classroom of children on the same track, won’t be in there.  When a child has completed one of these old textbooks, the parents will often worry that they did it too quickly, so they must have short-changed their child.  WRONG!  It is because it is now done so badly, and so slowly!

(To save you from years of garage sales and book bins, looking for this older stuff, the Robinson Curriculum is [basically] scanned in versions of old materials and textbooks or literature in the public domain.  While I would not replicate this program’s method or technique [I think their sensory deprivation methods and approach are rather freaky], the CDs provide a lot of valuable content to use.)

A set of 1950s World Book Encyclopedias will have more actual, usable content than the 4 years of textbooks children get in public school.  If we’re focusing on science and technology, these older books won’t be very helpful, but if we’re learning history, history doesn’t change!  If a parent were to assign a child to read from the World Book and then discuss the contents (or write about it), the parent has exceeded the educational goals of the public education system, and has provided to the child more meaty and substantial content than they’ll ever find in a modern textbook.  A complete set of encyclopedias can be bought on CD for about $10.  Parents don’t need to buy textbooks to get good content.

Even buying an old-fashioned paper soldier war gaming set, allowing a child to recreate the battles of the Civil War or the skirmishes of WWI or WWII, will result in the child knowing a hell of a lot more about any of those subjects than they’ll find in a modern textbook.

And don’t rule out television.  Networks such as Discovery, History Channel, Science Channel, or Animal Planet provide more substantive content than you’ll ever find in a modern textbook.  The great advantage of these programs is that they focus on a single issue or topic, in greater depth.  Your learning day can incorporate these shows quite easily.  If you watch them in advance (or with your child) you can also design tests to determine if the content was retained, or use them as springboards for further exploration about subjects and issues your child found interesting/exciting.  You can spend $80 for a textbook or buy a complete TV Blue Planet series for $50.  Which do you think will have more content and better retention? 

Civilisation: The Complete Series (1969) can be purchased on Amazon for $60.  (There’s even a book by Clark that details the series contents.) If you use the book and DVDs as the basics, you can supplement with reading material from each period, and you’ll have an entire year of content that will be better than ANYTHING you can buy in a textbook.

What would YOU rather do?  Re-read the history textbooks you read in school, or watch a TV series by Kenneth Clark?  What about a choice between your old textbooks or a year spent reading the dictionary or World Book?  Do you think your kids, by being vulnerable and subject-to-your-whim, will be different? Don’t bore them with modern textbooks or send them the message that by reading those textbooks that they know anything with any degree of substance.

There are a lot of hours in a day and your home-schooled child’s education doesn’t have to be dwarfed by only providing an hour’s worth of repetitive, dumbed-down, crap from a boring textbook.  Be creative and unconventional!  You have enough information from this series now to understand how to design curriculum, how to test if your child learned it, and how to evaluate if your child’s learning styles are causing a problem. 

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Next up, Learning Inventory.

Educating Your Children VIII:  Learning Inventory

As I’ve mentioned many times in this series, you have to have Goals and Objectives.  It is what you use as the basis for finding materials, evaluating them, as well as a method to test you and your child’s success and progress.  What are your educational goals?  Well, I don’t know what YOUR goals and objectives are.  I can’t evaluate if they’re good or bad, or if you’ve chosen good sources.  What I’ll attempt to do in this post is provide a list of goals and then expand it.  You will have your own lists, but can use this as a model for developing your own.

As I’ve included before, here is Thomas Jefferson’s goals for public education, and they were OUR goals (as I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel):

• To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
• To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing;
• To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
• To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
• To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
• And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

The above were the goals for our home-school, at the point when we determined if we were “done.” Education is never “done” but we’re providing a cutting off point equivalent to a high school diploma.  The above list is the last point in our home-school, but it is age specific. 

By exploding each point, we can establish objectives.  They will be broader, more like milestones than learning objectives.  Let me illustrate with the first one:

To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;

• Arithmetic, bookkeeping, accounting, and taxation
• Marketing, sales, and advertising
• Law, licenses, and permits
• Fiduciary responsibility
• Correspondence and contracts
• Hiring, mentoring, and payroll

If we take the above to an extreme, it could lead to Masters in Business Administration or it might involve focused studies in Agriculture, Manufacturing, or the Arts.  That’s not our focus in K through 12.  What we’re wanting to provide in K-12 are the foundation skills, and more theoretical and practical knowledge.  That is our end point with each of the above provided broadly.

If our child is five years old, we’re not going to try to teach them accounting, or even bookkeeping.  We have prerequisites to learn, before we can get to those subjects.  But that’s the direction we’re heading, with the prerequisites as learning milestones.

Let’s look at ONE of those, arithmetic.

Can the child write?  Does he have the small motor skills to hold a pencil?  Has he demonstrated that he understands the concept of numbers, beyond the ability to recognize and name the shape?  Has the child demonstrated that he understands the difference between a whole and a fraction?  Does he have the ability to count, beyond simply mimicking? 

The entire discipline of mathematics, of which arithmetic is a basic building block, is a language.  It is a language, just like English or any other spoken and written language.  It has rules, the equivalent of grammar, and exceptions.  Beyond the basics of it as a language, the ability to perform it (beyond understanding it theoretically) requires mental calisthenics (calculations).  Those building blocks can be further broken down, such as adding, then subtracting, then multiplication, and then division.  All of those skills have rules and special symbols and words.  You can teach your child to recite “two plus two equals four” but does he understand what he’s saying and what it means?  Does he understand the synonyms of “two and two are four” or “two + two = four”?

That’s a lot to learn! 

But children generally do this so easily and at such a young age that we tend to gloss over just how much language they’ve acquired and understood in order to be able to do it.  How easily they do it depends on how consistent and precise we are with language. 

They also have to be able to recognize and write those symbols, requiring that they’ve developed the small motor skills to hold and control a pencil.  Is the child mature enough to hold a pencil without risk of them sticking it in their eye or eating the eraser?  If not, start with a crayon!  Dexterity and maturity are required.  You’d no more give a six-month old a pencil as you would give a seven year old the car keys and ask them to drive to the store for a gallon of milk.  Even before you teach the child to drive, they have to learn to make transactions with others, understanding the concept of currency, tax, and change.  If you give a five-year old a $20 bill, will they come home with the right change?  How would they know if they were short-changed?

The point of detailing the above is not to be verbose (OK, maybe a little), but to illustrate that there are dozens of dozens of prerequisites to doing things we think of as easy and common.  We might remember the first time we got short-changed, but do we remember how we were taught to do it ourselves, so it doesn’t happen to us again?

In addition to being able to calculate the cost of something and determine if we were short-changed, there are other aspects of language that allow us to engage the seller in the transaction.  “I want a glass of milk, please” told to a waiter is a contract.  Children can learn to state the basics of contracts by having to order what they want at a restaurant.  They learn this by modeling the language and behavior of their parents, which is why it is so important that their parents are consistent in how they do these things.  If one parent always does the ordering (although a common custom in etiquette) the child might get the idea that the parent will always order for them, or use shyness as an excuse not to have to do it themselves.  Did they forget the “please”?  Did they forget to specify the “size”?  Did they forget to include special considerations or preferences, such as “medium well,” “plain,” “ketchup only,” or “no onions”?

I’m not suggesting that children learn “the hard way” for everything, forcing them to live with the consequences of a hamburger delivered with onions, but these things are learned gradually, with lots of prompting and reminders from the parents.  If the child can say “I want a hamburger, please” they should be congratulated when they do that (with a big smile and nod of approval the first time they do it).  The parent can add “plain, please” and then tell the child at a later point that they can say “I want a plain hamburger, please” to make sure it gets to them the way they want it.

When we order something at a restaurant we have engaged in a verbal contract with the business.  When we order something we have committed to paying for it, even though we don’t say “I would like a plain hamburger for $2.95, and I will pay for that hamburger if it is delivered within a reasonable time, and as specified.” That’s implied.  Does the child know that yet?  If they bring a peanut butter sandwich instead, do you have to pay for it, if you ate it? 

There is also a contract with the wait-staff.  We are required, even though it isn’t written down anywhere, that we will pay them 15% to 20% in tip, if they deliver it to our table.  How much above 15% we tip them will be based on the quality and speed of the service.  Does the child know how to determine quality or speed?  Does the child know that the tip percentage is different (10% to 12%) if it is a buffet service?  What about “to go” service at a traditional restaurant versus a fast food place?  What are the standard rules for tips and when they apply?

These are social customs, combined with legal customs, based on an honor system.  But it is complicated!  Children can learn about those customs by seeing them modeled and being asked to take the money and the check to the cashier, and having to bring back the right amount of change.  Does the parent review the check, making sure that they were charged only for what they ordered and received, or to see if the tip was included?  Are you explaining what you’re doing when you look at the bill?  Can your child do it?

These concepts and customs make up the basics of a civil society, and provide the basic building blocks to understanding boilerplate contracts and the idea of “unwritten rules.”

When looking at a menu with pictures, parents can talk about the fact that the Fruity Tootie special doesn’t look exactly like the picture when the pancakes arrive.  That’s marketing and advertising basics.  “Yes, the picture looks appealing, but if you’ll remember, you didn’t like it the last time you ordered it.” This helps a child learn about deceptive advertising, and matures in being able to short-circuit their impulsive instincts, which prepares them to read the small print in contracts.

In providing a learning inventory by age level, the above illustrates how much more is learned and required in order to do things we think of as simple.  A child isn’t born knowing that you must add a minimum of 15% to a restaurant check, nor are they born knowing how to calculate percentages. 

Playing a restaurant game with the child and parent taking turns acting as the waiter, creating a menu, having a cash register, etc., are GREAT ways to teach a child these things, including having the savvy to be able to be able to speak up for what they want.  What happens when the waiter leaves the table, and goes to the kitchen to get your order?  These things don’t happen by magic.  The parent or the child can become the restaurant chef, preparing the order, and then having one person of the role players deliver it to the waiting customers.  If the parent complains about how the food was served or that it took too long, the child learns empathy, and has an understanding of how long it takes to prepare food, and to be able to gauge the speed and quality of the service they receive (quality is an abstract concept).

But as you can see, I hope, playing games like this with your young children provide them with skills they will have to have to get along in the world, as well as providing a foundation for skills and knowledge they will have to learn later.

You can play all sorts of games with young children to prepare them for their social engagements.  You can play the restaurant game above, going to the grocery store, and play department store from the clothing in your closets.  You can learn about taking inventory of your pantry, before you go to the store, to make sure you buy only what you need and like. A child can learn about sales and how to calculate markdowns, by putting little stickers, such as “10% off” or “50% off” on different drawers and racks in their closets, and then give them monopoly money to buy a wardrobe.  The list of preparatory games is endless!

One of the games we played in our house, which has endless benefits for a child (once they’re ready for it), was “The Bank of Mom.” I’ve written about this before, but we gave each of our children a check register (we all have extras laying around).  It was a checkbook with only the check register (no checks).  Each of our kids were given an allowance each week.  Out of that, they had to buy everything (except their school books and groceries).  They had to buy EVERYTHING else from their accounts: their clothing, entertainment (toys, games, movies), basic toiletries (deodorant, toothpaste), etc.  This meant that they had to take their checkbooks everywhere, and their transactions were totaled and paid for separately.  I actually paid for everything, but the amounts were subtracted from their balances.  I had veto authority, of course, but I didn’t have to exercise it very often.  It teaches a child the basic mechanics of household budgeting, but it also teaches them (very quickly) to be wise shoppers.  They learn another very important lesson:  they recognize the amount of money being spent on them, versus the things that are provided to them.  They see the amount of the grocery bill and realize they didn’t have to pay for it. 

Their allowances were quite high, because this wasn’t just “mad money.” The allowances were not directly tied to a punishment/reward system either, so there were no punitive dings if they didn’t do their chores.  Chores and household responsibilities are required, and that was the basis for their having their food and shelter covered, not coming out of their individual accounts.

Since they paid for things, they treated their clothing and personal items with a great deal of respect. 

The “Bank of Mom” also had an end date.  Our children knew that once they reached the age of 16, the Bank of Mom and their allowances ended.  They had years of experience knowing exactly how much they needed to live on, and so when they got their first jobs, they knew that the $50 or $60 they were earning a week wasn’t going to enable them to live like millionaires… and let me tell you, when they saw the amount of money that was deducted from their paychecks in FICA and other taxes, they were PISSED.  They also understood that Mom and Dad weren’t going to continue to pay for their basics once they had the ability to earn money.  Their food and shelter would be paid for (as long as they were in school and contributing), but they had to pay for everything else.  Springing that on them, at age 16 or 18, before they’ve had any experience with budgeting and forecasting is TOO LATE.

They quickly transfered those skills to managing their real bank accounts and debit cards.

(In the last year, our daughter had to quit working because of her school schedule and her responsibility of chauffeuring her brother to and from school.  She doesn’t have to be told to appreciate the small allowance she now receives again, nor how to manage it.  While she might moan a bit about having to run errands for us, or drive her brother hither and yon, she does it, because she realizes these things were done for her, and it’s “payback time.” She thanks us every week for the small amount of money she receives, not seeing it as any sort of entitlement, but as a gift.  She can be sent to the local club store with a grocery list a mile long, with my debit card, and I have no fear that she’ll run off to Hawaii with my debit card.  That trust was earned and the skills diligently taught.)

* * *

The above explained the concepts of prerequisites applied to long term goals, broken up by skill set and age appropriateness.  With those caveats, the following is a basic guideline of what your children should be learning, and by when:

Toddlers:

• Small motor skills (to hold a pencil, dress themselves, turn the pages of a book, navigate and use objects, such as the sink, toothbrush, towels, and washcloths)
• Spacial concepts (pouring, setting their place at the table, holding fork/spoon and serving themselves)
• Sit quietly and attentively (5 minutes or so) [Update:  Please read this article about DI and the effectiveness of Direct Instruction (intensive language instruction), more here.]
• Number and letter recognition
• Basic language skills (sentence structure: noun, action and multi-actions, such as put on your shoes AND socks, get a bowl AND pour cereal/milk) and engage with strangers in social settings (ordering at a restaurant, for example) and demonstrating basic etiquette of “please” and “thank you.”
• Arithmetic readiness
• Basic organization skills: knowing where things are stored in their rooms (clothing/toiletries/toys) and in the organization of the kitchen (knowing where the milk, cereal and other items are stored and put away)

Age 5 (or about)

• Basic writing skills
• Basic reading skills
• Arithmetic language
• Use more advanced objects in the house (the toaster, TV/DVD player, radio/stereo, and basic computer skills, such as the use of a mouse, inserting and removing CDs/DVDs)
• Respecting the property and privacy of others (awareness of body)

Age 9 (or about)

• Reading and writing
• Awareness of self and others (children, by age 8, should have a strong sense of self, different from their parents/siblings, ie, their thoughts are not their parents thoughts, nor are their preferences the same as their parents, and they should recognize and understand pecking orders, sufficient to understand that rules are different for adults/children or their siblings from themselves, with REASONS)
• Tell time/read a clock and awareness of time in how long it takes to get dressed, cook a meal, etc.
• Engage in the world in small interchanges (buy something and get the right change, recognize forms of currency and be able to add up the cost of something before going to cash register to pay for them)
• Spatial:  Basic inventories and the ability to measure ingredients, manipulate objects
• Manners:  Be able to sit quietly through a movie, use proper table manners, and be able to cut their own food.  In addition, they should be able to make basic introductions and understand the appropriateness of clothing to a particular occasion, and buy and plan for presents, Holidays, and other social interactions, including setting the table, meal planning, and serving and seating arrangements
• Begin writing and reading cursive, composing notes, cards, and letters and the appropriate contents thereof

Age 13 (or about)

• Reading and writing to express abstract thoughts and ideas (understanding the abstract morals of stories, distinguish fantasy/fiction from facts, and basic logic in writing)
• Grammar fundamentals and language rules (including spelling)
• Expanding vocabulary
• Budgeting and forecasting money and time
• Humor, story and joke telling, literary criticism, and summarizing key points and restating important elements, and the ability to make bulleted lists and create outlines (categorization and inventory)
• Basic route planning, map reading, calculating distances, with time and various travel-modes with fuel consumption
• Health, hygiene, and basic maintenance (they should be doing their own laundry and maintaining their wardrobes and room organization, for example, changing their own sheets and making their beds, and keeping their rooms reasonably tidy, coordinating outfits, and keeping inventory of the disposables they use/need)
• Keeping their word and commitments, and to negotiate time and responsibilities
• Self reliance:  ability to cook small meals for themselves and siblings (using the oven, microwave, and stove top and follow recipes, ability to sew on a button, wash the car, complex chores such as watering/mowing, follow basic instructions to assemble toys), use tools, and make all purchase types
• Participate and carry on conversations with adults, showing respect, deference, proper manners, and inquisitiveness
• Basic attack and problem solving skills

By the time a child is 13 (or about), they should be self-functioning individuals, with the mechanics of the broad disciplines of the Three Rs.  What they haven’t learned entirely is to override their impulses and instincts, to be safe in all situations, but the above basics will prepare them for when their hormones begin raging, and when they’ll need your guidance, kindness, and patience the most.

Age 14 and beyond will be addressed in the next post.

Educating Your Children IX:  Teenagers

I would probably do a better job writing this post if I were drunk (but I can’t drink anymore).  It is only through a stupor that I could write this section with the proper degree of cynicism and honesty.  It is in this post that I have to bring up the dreaded topic of IQ, and push everyone’s buttons.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are a number of things we can do to help a child achieve their potential.  Nutrition and nurturing are facets of it.  What is important to accept is that there is a fixed point, at the end of the potential line.  We can’t get over that wall.  We can and should try to get as close to it as we can, but there is a risk of diminishing returns if we keep slamming our heads into it.

It makes good sense to determine your child’s IQ when they begin their teenage years.  What you do with that information, however, is what makes it a good or a bad idea. 

Captain Barbarosa (Pirates of the Caribbean) regarding abiding by the Pirate’s Code: “They’re more like guidelines, really.”

History gives us a number of examples of determining a child’s fate during this period in their lives.  It is no accident that the Jewish tradition sets manhood and entry into the club at age 13.  It is not an accident that the eighth grade was the traditional stopping point of schooling, when a person’s life was at a crossroads.  There is a kind of stability in a child’s development, once they get to this age.  (I caution those who take exception to the generalities I’m referring to here, and take them as literal/absolutes.)

A child with an IQ of 75 is not going to medical school. 

The average IQ of the population as a whole is, by definition, 100. IQs range from 0 to above 200, and among children, to above 250. However, about 50% of the population have IQs between 89 and 111, and about 80% of the population have IQs ranging between 80 and 120, with 10% lying below 80, and 10% falling above 120.

For IQs below 120, IQ is the best predictor of socioeconomic status of any psychometric measurement. In more complex jobs, IQ is better than even education or experience at predicting job performance. In her article “The General Intelligence Factor”, Scientific American Presents “Exploring Intelligence”, pg. 24, 1999, Linda Gottfredson states:

“Adults in the bottom 5% of the IQ distribution (below 75) are very difficult to train and are not competitive for any occupation on the basis of ability. Serious problems in training low-IQ military recruits during World War II led Congress to ban enlistment from the lowest 10% (below 80) of the population, and no civilian occupation in modern economies routinely recruits its workers from that below-80 range. Current military enlistment standards exclude any individual whose IQ is below about 85.”

“Persons of average IQ (between 90 and 100) are not competitive for most professional and executive-level work but are easily trained for the bulk of jobs in the American economy. By contrast, individuals in the top 5 percent of the adult population can essentially train themselves, and few occupations are beyond their reach mentally.”

“People with IQs between 75 and 90 are 88 times more likely to drop out of high school, seven times more likely to be jailed, and five times more likely as adults to live in poverty than people with IQs between 110 and 125. The 75-to-90 IQ woman is eight times more likely to become a chronic welfare recipient, and four times as likely to bear an illegitimate child than the 110-to-125-IQ woman.”

In his book, Straight Talk About Mental Tests, The Free Press, A Division of the Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1981, pg. 12, Dr. Arthur Jensen cites the following four IQ thresholds:

(1) An IQ of 50 or below. This is the threshold below which most adults cannot cope outside of an institution. They can typically be taught to read at a 3rd or 4th grade level. However, they cannot normally function in the customary classroom setting, and they require special training programs.
(2) An IQ between 50 and 75. At this level of intelligence, they generally cannot complete elementary school. Most adults will need smarter help in coping with the world.
(3) An IQ between 75 and 105. Children in this IQ range are not generally able to complete a college prep course in high school.
(4) An IQ between 105 and 115. May graduate from college but generally, not with grades that would qualify them for graduate school.
(5) An IQ above 115. No restrictions.

For IQs in these ranges, the influence of IQ upon socioeconomic status is dramatic. 31% of those with IQs below 75 were on welfare, compared with 8% of those in the 90 to 110 IQ interval, and 0% in those with IQs above 125. 55% of mothers with IQs below 75 went on welfare after the birth of the first child, compared with 12% of those with IQs between 90 and 110, and 1% of those with IQs above 125. Income is highly dependent upon IQ up to an IQ-level of about 125.

The table below (also from the above referenced site) provides some useful information for our purposes.

IQ Range	Frequency	Cumulative Frequency	Typical Educability	Employment Options
Below 30	>1%	>1% below 30	Illiterate	Unemployable. Institutionalized.
30 to 50	>1%?	>1% below 50	1st-Grade to 3rd-Grade	Simple, non-critical household chores.
50 to 60	~1%?	1.5% below 60	3rd-Grade to 6th-grade	Very simple tasks, close supervision.
60 to 74	3.5%?	5% below 74	6th-Grade to 8th-Grade	"Slow, simple, supervised."
74 to 89	20%	25% below 89	8th-Grade to 12th-Grade	Assembler, food service, nurse’s aide
89 to 100	25%	50% below 100	8th-Grade to 1-2 years of College.	Clerk, teller, Walmart
100 to 111	50%	1 in 2 above 100	12th-Grade to College Degree	Police officer, machinist, sales
111 to 120	15%	1 in 4 above 111	College to Master’s Level	Manager, teacher, accountant
120 to 125	5%	11 in 10 above 120	College to Non-Technical Ph. D.’s.	Manager, professor, accountant
125 to 132	3%	1 in 20 above 125	Any Ph. D. at 3rd-Tier Schools	Attorney, editor, executive.
132 to 137	1%	1 in 50 above 132	No limitations.	Eminent professor, editor
137 to 150	0.9%	1 in 100 above 137	No limitations.	Leading math, physics professor
150 to 160	0.1%	1 in 1,100 above 150	No limitations	Lincoln, Copernicus, Jefferson
160 to 174	0.01%	1 in 11,000 above 160	No limitations	Descartes, Einstein, Spinoza
174 to 200	0.0099%	1 in 1,000,000 above 174	No limitations	Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton

The table above gives us the outside edge of our wall--the potential of our children, based on their IQ.  Expecting them to be able to exceed the wall is no different from expecting them to grow taller than their physical potential, for a girl to grow a penis if we wanted a boy instead, or to suddenly start growing blond hair, where their red hair used to be… just by trying harder.  It isn’t going to happen, no matter how hard they try.

At this point in a child’s development is when it is often easier for someone else to make these decisions, because our role as a parent has to change.  Until the teenage years, when an IQ test really is an accurate predictor of their potential, we’ve been akin to You can do it! Now our role and our job as a parent has to change.  We have to become dispassionate (but optimistic) advisers rather than cheerleaders. 

Since IQ was often related to birth order, customs were developed around that.  It was preordained that the first son would inherit the family business, the second son would go into the military, and the third son would join the clergy.  Birth order isn’t a 100% reliable as an IQ predictor, especially if sons are born more than two years apart, but it is an interesting phenomenon (that we can now understand scientifically.

We don’t like to look at our children so critically, nor are we thrilled with the idea of having to be honest and direct them in a way that might be contrary to our personal desires for them, or even their own desires.  We like to hold out hope for a different outcome and so we leave all doors open to our children. 

I can’t support that idea, because it has no grounding in fact/reality.

Sharing a child’s IQ with them has some risk.  Children with normal or low IQs can be discouraged or defeated.  Children with higher IQs tend not to work as hard.  Just because someone’s IQ is high doesn’t mean they’ll achieve their potential.  It just means it is possible for them to aspire to the more heady professions and careers.  They still have to put forth an effort.  Resting on one’s laurels is not achievement nor success make.  A person can have a high IQ but still have a low degree of stamina or discipline.  This laziness tendency with smarter kids is partially learned behavior, especially if they’ve not had to exert much effort in a public-type school environment.  They’ve gotten away with something, they think, but that early laziness habit will be a difficult one to break.

Now the nice thing about IQ is that it tends to be genetic.  If parents have an IQ of about 100, odds are good their children will too.  This means that the definition of happiness and success of the parents will be satisfactory to them, and any disappointment they might have that their child won’t be another Einstein will be tempered by those definitions.  Because it is a general tendency doesn’t mean it is the reality, so an IQ test will provide definitive proof, and give parents an idea of how to approach the teenage years.

Paraphrasing dialog from A Fish Called Wanda: “Apes can READ Nietzsche.  They just can’t UNDERSTAND it.”

If a child has an IQ in the normal range (about 100), it makes no sense to direct their academic pursuits with subject levels that will be beyond them.  As the quote above illustrates, they’ll be able to go through the mechanics of doing the work, but it won’t have any lasting impact, nor any academic purpose.  Their response to Nietzsche will be something along the lines of “Huh?” It is at that point that their literary selections might be better directed to Louis L’Amour, Judith Krantz, or Robert Heinlein, instead of Joseph Conrad or Truman Capote.  They can read Conrad and Capote, because they’ll have the mechanics of reading, but they’ll only understand them at a very superficial/literal level… which is OK, too, but reading it won’t raise their IQ, ie, make them any quicker/smarter than they are, nor will they benefit from the exposure to the writing quality, density, or underlying message.

IQs are similar to the capabilities of modes of transport.  You might be able to get a bicycle to go 120 miles an hour, down a severe hill, but it can’t do it on the straights (and you risk life and limb in doing so).  A bicycle won’t ever fly, as an airplane will, unless you drive it off a cliff.  A car is designed to travel on highways, but depending on the car, it might not hold together (or be safe) above 80mph. 

Below an IQ of 110, children entering their teenage years need to be directed to careers in the trades, not directed to college or university (in the conventional sense).  What we provide to them (as their educators) is preparing them for their careers and what they’ll do when our home-schooling is “done.”

Some colleges offer trade school education, so “college” can be a confusing term these days.  Many places (such as police or fire departments) have outsourced their trade instruction to community colleges, so “colleges” aren’t completely ruled out if that’s the direction.

In general, with the caveat above, if a child has a normal or lower IQ, their “education” stops at their teenage years, and their “training” begins. 

What becomes an interesting challenge is parents with children with IQs remarkably different from their own.  A parent with an IQ in the normal range might not be the best educator for a child with an IQ of 120 or above.  That child needs a mentor who has similar capabilities, so tutors or private school should be considered.  It is not as problematic for parents with higher IQs and children lower, but that also presents challenges because the parents will have a hard time relating to how and why the child learns more slowly, and retains less (or misses the “big picture” so easily).  That parent will tend to get frustrated by their child’s abilities (or skip over basics, assuming the child has them), and that isn’t a good thing for that child.  A child’s emotional development and their well-being is just as important as their academic development.

What is also interesting about higher IQs is the tendency for empathy and compassion to be lacking.  Whether this is learned behavior (by living in a world with the majority of people so easily duped by their smarter fellows) or whether there is some sort of genetic synthesis isn’t really important.  What is important is to accept that this tendency exists.  Children with higher IQs need to have character, empathy, integrity and honor education, more so than their go-along-to-get-along, lower IQ peers.  If it is genetic, it probably won’t be effective, but because we cannot be certain of that, we need to try.

This, as I said, is a very difficult subject, because it pokes at people’s egos and their sense of fairness.  It is also incredibly difficult for parents to direct a child away from things that might interest them, or sound good on paper, when the child has no hope of actually achieving it (even if they passionately desire it).

For parents with children in the higher IQ range, I suggest an academic program similar to the one detailed here, with the focus on university preparation.  For children with normal or lower IQs, I suggest some of the more traditional curriculum, such as this.

It is possible to get an accurate read of a child’s IQ when they’re younger (and choose their educational direction sooner), but it should be repeated at the entry to the teenage years, just to be certain.

If we were living in a different time, it would be possible to direct your normal child into the trades and secure for them an apprenticeship.  Unfortunately, we are mostly prohibited by law from doing that sort of thing now, and so these efforts must be delayed until they are 16 or 18… but that is what you can do to help that child, even if it doesn’t sound as sexy or exciting.  It’s honest, however painful that might be to accept.

Educating Your Children X:  Ethos

What is interesting about discussions, especially ones that occur with the same people over a long period of time, is that we can have a disconnect in our use of language, but we don’t know it.  I will often chain several (synonymous) words together to encapsulate a concept I’m trying to address.  Even with that, another person’s understanding of those words will lead them to conclude I mean something else.  It can be quite shocking when you discover it.

In this series I have strung together the words character, morals, and integrity (and have included honor).  In a comment to a previous post in the series, someone used the word “ethics” to describe what I was trying to convey.

Wrong.  The concept I’m trying to address has nothing to do with ethics.

Ethics is to morality as logic is to thinking.

Ethics relates to how one behaves in a business or professional context, and from a scientific standpoint.  It is the heady version of thought, and the development of the mind in the intellectual realm, using the head as the device one reasons with to determine right from wrong.  Morality and character come from the heart.

Character/morals/integrity are the way one feels, not the way one behaves.  While there is some overlap and it can get confusing, the distinction is an important one.

There are a set of behaviors that relate to codes of conduct which I’ll refer to as E1.  If we present ourselves as in compliance with E1, it allows us to commune with our fellows in a manner that is perceived to be beneficial to ourselves.  It is similar to how one behaves at the workplace, doing one’s job well, so we will continue to be compensated for our efforts. 

There are another set of behaviors that relate to how we reconcile our inner worth that I’ll refer to as M1.  If we behave in a manner that is consistent with M1, we feel good about ourselves, even if we derive no “worldly” benefit (and might experience a negative consequence). 

I’ll attempt to illustrate with a few examples.

• If we’re walking down the street and see that a parking meter has expired, with a meter-maid writing tickets to other cars on the street, do we drop a coin in the expired meter of the stranger? 
  
  There is no benefit to ourselves in the category of E1, unless we are in the company of friends, who would see us perform the act.  If we do it alone, with no one but ourselves bearing witness, it is in the realm of M1.  Further, the person who is determining to act based on M1 will seek to perform the act in secret, to guarantee that no worldly benefit will be derived from it; whereas, the person who is performing the act motivated by E1, will attempt to grandstand the action, even if the grandstand is full of strangers.

• If a person finds a crying child in a store, a person motivated by M1 or E1 will attempt to find the lost child’s guardians.  A person motivated by E1 will ask the child if they’ve lost their parents and seek the assistance of others to help locate the child’s parents.  The E1 motivated individual may take the child to a store manager, handing the responsibility over to someone else.  A person motivated by M1 may take similar actions, seeking out others to help the lost child.  How the individual relates to the child and whether or not they stay with the child until the lost parents are found, determine if the person is acting from E1 or M1. 
  
  In the latter example, the person driven by E1 is using a derivative of logic, ie, a lost child needs to find its parents.  The person driven by M1 is feeling/sharing the child’s angst, not simply relating to it.  The M1 motivated person has assumed the child’s feelings as their own.  They will not be satisfied, relieved of those feelings of angst, until the child has, and will remain with that child, until the parents are found.  The M1 motivated person has become the child’s angst, and has become in an emotional sense, in one with the child.  The E1 motivated person has recognized the child’s plight as a distinct and separate person, and assumed their social responsibility to respond.
  
  The E1 behaving individual is showing compassion (and demonstrates a socially responsible response, but has the choice to stay or leave, once the duty has been passed to someone else).  The M1 motivated person is feeling compassion (and has no thought of what is socially responsible [even if their actions are also], because they have no option to stay or leave).
  
  It is also possible (and this is why examples of these differences can be complicated) that a person motivated by E1 will wait until the parent is found so that they can be thanked and acknowledged by the parents.  The person motivated by M1 is not desirous of thanks, and would be quite shocked (and humbled/embarrassed) if the parents offered it.

There are many examples of people motivated by E1.  Studies of bathroom behavior is one.  It was found that people washed their hands after using the toilet, in a much higher percentage, when someone else was in the bathroom.  Only a small percentage of people washed their hands when they were in the restroom alone.  The latter were acting from M1 motivations.

From a religious sense, it is common for people who are psychically-religious to behave as if someone is always watching, ie, God is always watching us.  Their reward (or punishment) for their behavior is not based on the judgment of their peers, but a higher authority to which they have an intimate relationship, awareness, and bond.

The words we can use to differentiate E1 from M1 are physically versus psychically, respectively.

A person behaving from E1 motivations knows what is socially acceptable, and responds accordingly.  The M1 motivated person has no ability to respond in any other way.

A person who is motivated by M1 will run into the street to prevent a stranger’s child from being hit by a car, giving no consideration (or a moment’s thought) for their own safety/risk.  An E1 motivated person may demonstrate the same “self-less” act, but only when it is their own child.

He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality… The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call Common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

--Thomas Jefferson, 1787

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Exercising The Moral Sense

When I describe morality, character, integrity (and honor), I am referring to the classification of things as M1.  When I am referring to manners and social rules (duties and obligations), I am referring to E1. 

Both can be taught or exercised.  Some will take to M1 without motivation (without implications of a negative consequence).  Those who are lacking in the moral sense have to be dealt with, and educated, differently.

When [the moral sense] is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or the rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose depravity is not too profound to be eradicated.
--Thomas Jefferson, 1814

A Man For All Seasons

In the history of Sir Thomas More we find a classic dichotomy of ethics and morals. 

Sir Thomas More was a consummate politician--the right arm of Henry VIII.  As the King’s Ambassador, Sir Thomas spoke before the Church of Rome on behalf of the King in his desire to divorce his wife--properly (and ethically) performed his duties as Chancellor.  When King Henry decided to break his bonds with Rome, after the Pope refused to grant his divorce, Sir Thomas resigned his position, and took no actions (nor spoke of his reasons) against the King.  He could no longer perform his duties morally.  His ethics were trumped by his morality.

Sir Thomas More
I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

In this wee bit of history, we find the penultimate discussion of morals and ethics.  It is difficult to find anyone acting immorally or unethically.  The Church of Rome was (at least partially) basing their decision not to grant King Henry a divorce based on the politics of Spain.  In that sense, the Church was behaving ethically, basing their decision on what was right and proper treatment for the Prince of Spain.  King Henry, a ruler by divine-right had an ethical obligation to provide England an heir and believed (rightly or wrongly) that he was being denied an heir because there was something immoral about his marriage to his brother’s (the former King’s) wife.

Now whether or not King Henry was motivated by lust, and used the argument of incest simply to justify his immoral motivation to himself or to others, there should be no question that his desire for an heir (regardless of motivation) was an ethical one.

The question of the Church of Rome’s motivations are another facet to our discussion.  When the Church of Rome was faced with a choice between ethics or morality, which does it choose?  This would depend, of course, on how much value (or weight) they gave to the argument of Henry’s marriage to Katherine of being moral or immoral.

Was Henry’s marriage to Katherine incestuous?

If you decide that their relationship was incestuous, then the Pope’s decision not to grant Henry a divorce was an immoral act, with the outcome that the Church of Rome had lost its moral compass.

If you decide that their relationship was not incestuous, then the Pope’s decision not to grant the divorce was moral, and the Church of Rome maintained its function as an arbiter of moral actions.

Clearly, God was denying King Henry (and England) an heir, but was it because of incest or not?  Was there incest?

Was the Church of Rome the Moral Center of Europe or was it the Ethical Center of Europe?

These are heady and heartfelt discussions, of which Europe was engaged during the duration of the event (and for many decades following).

King Henry, a King by divine right, was the leader and ruler of his people.  With that came duties and responsibilities, ie, ethics.  If the Church of Rome’s actions prevented King Henry to properly discharge his ethical duties, and based their decision on one of ethics, rather than morality, Henry had a right to trump. 

There could be only one ethical leader of England.  It would either be the King or Rome, but not both.  If, as many believed, the Church based its decision on ethics (and not morality), then the Church was trying to assert its authority over England, and be its ruler from afar.

From this we derive the ultimate discussion between the moral church and ethical state:

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
--Matthew 22:21

God had made Henry King, and the Pope was defying God by not allowing him to discharge his duties.

Sir Thomas did not share that opinion.  He believed that the Church of Rome had properly discharged its moral duties, leaving the Church as the sole arbiter on the question of incest.  Therefore, King Henry’s actions to break with Rome were seen to Sir Thomas as an immoral act, and because of that he could no longer perform his ethical duties.  If you can no longer perform your ethical duties, your morals compel you to resign.

The Duke of Norfolk
Oh confound all this. I’m not a scholar, I don’t know whether the marriage was lawful or not but dammit, Thomas, look at these names! Why can’t you do as I did and come with us, for fellowship!

Sir Thomas More
And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

Henry and Thomas were friends and allies and neither could be accused of not having England’s interests in mind, nor any question of their recognition and thoughtful execution of their respective duties.  They had “agreed to disagree” on the issue of the motivations behind the Church’s decisions.  Both were fully cognizant of their relationship and duty to God.  They were at an impasse… and so was the rest of England and Europe.

King Henry VIII
Oh, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas! Does a man need a Pope to tell him where he’s sinned? It was a sin. God’s punished me. I have no son. Son after son she’s borne me - all dead at birth or dead within the month. Never saw the hand of God so clear in anything. It’s my bounden duty to put away the Queen and all the popes back to Peter shall not come between me and my duty! How is it that you cannot see? Everyone else does.

Sir Thomas More
Then why does your Grace need my poor support?

King Henry VIII
Because you’re honest… and what is more to the purpose, you’re KNOWN to be honest. There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown; and those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I’m their tiger; there’s a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves. And then there’s you…

Sir Thomas More
I am sick to think how much I must displease your Grace.

King Henry VIII
No, Thomas, I respect your sincerity. But respect… man, that’s water in the desert.

Because politics were involved, and there was a division among the Court on the matter, Henry had to solidify his base, by identifying those who were loyal to him (agreeing with his take on the matter) versus those who were siding with Rome.

Every man had to sign a document declaring that they were loyal to Henry and agreed that the Church of Rome was no longer a moral body.  Essentially, the document required that each man declare that the Church of Rome was no longer the spokesman for God on earth.

Would you have signed that document?

Sir Thomas More could not and did not.  He was executed July 6, 1535. 

Sir Thomas More
I am commanded by the king to be brief, and since I am the king’s obedient subject, brief I will be. I die His Majesty’s good servant, but God’s first.
[to executioner, handing him his wages]
I forgive you, right readily. Be not afraid of your office: you send me to God.

Archbishop Cranmer
You’re very sure of that, Sir Thomas?

Sir Thomas More
He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.

More was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886.

* * *

Les Miserables

The story of Les Miserables is fiction, written by Victor Hugo in the 19th Century.  It chronicles the story of Jean Valjean, a convict who found redemption through an unnecessary act of kindness, and Inspector Javert, who is duty bound to find the escaped convict and return him to justice.  The story is sweeping, including the compassion shown by Jean Valjean to an orphan girl, whose mother died as a direct result of him passing judgment upon her and firing her. 

Jean Valjean assumes responsibility for Cosette, the orphaned girl, originally from a sense of ethical duty and one of repentance, but comes to love her as his own daughter… seeing in her God’s forgiveness and compassion.  Through impoverished and revolutionary France, we travel with Jean Valjean and Cosette as they try to live a moral life, one step ahead of Valjean’s sordid past.  If Valjean were to go back to prison, accepting his ethical fate, Cosette’s life would be in ruin, and his sacred promise to her mother to protect her would be broken.

While the book could provide a dozen summaries and debate questions, there is one aspect of the story that is especially appropriate for this purpose, and that is the experience of Inspector Javert.

In every sense, Javert is a moral and ethical man, properly discharging his lawful duties.  Jean Valjean is an escaped criminal and it is Javert’s duty to find him, and return him to prison (where he was lawfully sentenced to life, under the ethical laws of France).  Through a series of events, Javert is saved from being killed by the mob, by Valjean.  It was another act of unnecessary kindness, and one that would have guaranteed that Valjean could escape his past.  But Valjean has become a moral man and could not help but save Javert from a wrongful death, even if that meant that Javert would return him to prison. 

Javert, confronted with the dilemma of earthly justice (ethics) versus God’s Justice (morals), kills himself as his final act of reconciling the conflict between his head and his heart, forsaking his soul in the process.

We, the reader, are left to determine the moral question of Javert’s salvation.  Would he, in taking his own life (the ultimate defiance of God), be forgiven by God and accepted into His Grace?  Is a man who is conflicted in his ethical and moral duties, forgiven when his life’s circumstance provides him the choice to do neither?

* * *

But the above tales are no longer relevant in today’s world of microchips, the science of stem cells, and long and prosperous lives, right?

But while my views on the morality of the death penalty have nothing to do with how I vote as a judge, they have a lot to do with whether I can or should be a judge at all. To put the point in the blunt terms employed by Justice Harold Blackmun towards the end of his career on the bench, when he announced that he would henceforth vote (as Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall had previously done) to overturn all death sentences, when I sit on a Court that reviews and affirms capital convictions, I am part of “the machinery of death.” My vote, when joined with at least four others, is, in most cases, the last step that permits an execution to proceed. I could not take part in that process if I believed what was being done to be immoral.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in God’s Justice and Ours, examines the topic in a method wholly different from Inspector Javert, but his reasons and conflicts derive from the same source of conflict.

So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty is immoral is centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition, and everything to do with the fact that the West is the home of democracy. Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: “Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.” And when Cranmer asks whether he is sure of that, More replies, “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.” For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. What a horrible act!

To determine if Scalia can perform his ethical duties on the Supreme Court, he considers the lessons of his education, and answers (for himself) the question presented to Sir Thomas.

So I have given this new position thoughtful and careful consideration-and I disagree. That is not to say I favor the death penalty (I am judicially and judiciously neutral on that point); it is only to say that I do not find the death penalty immoral. I am happy to have reached that conclusion, because I like my job, and would rather not resign. And I am happy because I do not think it would be a good thing if American Catholics running for legislative office had to oppose the death penalty (most of them would not be elected); if American Catholics running for Governor had to promise commutation of all death sentences (most of them would never reach the Governor’s mansion); if American Catholics were ineligible to go on the bench in all jurisdictions imposing the death penalty; or if American Catholics were subject to recusal when called for jury duty in capital cases.

* * *

It is conjecture, but I would assume that Scalia wrote that essay for the same reason I often write something down.  It is a method of exploring the issue fully, a way of examining it, and then throwing it out there, to see if I’ve made an error.

We cannot learn only through our personal experience.  That would require us to test every theory, make every mistake, and discover the lessons with a great amount of risk and time required.  It would deny that history exists and that there is a kind of shortcut we can take to determine right from wrong, to strengthen our morals and character, and through which, behave as psychically-moral beings… clear on the differentiation between our earthly duties and our moral sense, and the psychic and physical realms.

Education of the moral sense is and has been accomplished through the study of history and literature, and I have summarized only two examples above to illustrate how that is done, one fiction, one not.  To deny this historical record, or to suggest that man can commune with his modern fellows to discern and define the way we should behave and conduct ourselves, is the epitome of the self--the elevation of our single lives to one of prominence above everyone who has come before us.  It denies that we are a continuum.  It is the ultimate act of self-centered, self-obsessed childishness.  It is the belief that the world really does revolve around me. 

Would Scalia be the kind of judge he is without the morals education he received?  We know he is a competent jurist, fully capable of understanding the trade-aspect of his profession (ie, the mechanics).  Would legal ethics have been sufficient to ground him? Do we need and want men who find a balance between ethics and morals and have learned the wisdom to know the difference?

---

We study to learn the mechanics of science, ethics, and law.  They are an ever-changing sphere, and asks what we can do.  Morality is fixed.  We need only discover it by morals education, and is what we should do.

Educating Your Children XI:  Gatekeepers

“The price of greatness is responsibility” were the words used by Winston Churchill, at a speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943, where he plead the British case to the American people, in hopes of getting Americans into the war effort. 

It is those same words that I begin this post, with an appeal to parents who home-school their children.

Here now, today, I am once again in academic groves - groves is, I believe, the right word - where knowledge is garnered, where learning is stimulated, where virtues are inculcated and thought encouraged. Here, in the broad United States, with a respectable ocean on either side of us, we can look out upon the world in all its wonder and in all its woe. But what is this that I discern as I pass through your streets, as I look round this great company?

I see uniforms on every side. I understand that nearly the whole energies of the University have been drawn into the preparation of American youth for the battlefield. For this purpose all classes and courses have been transformed, and even the most sacred vacations have been swept away in a round-the-year and almost round-the-clock drive to make warriors and technicians for the fighting fronts.

Twice in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle.

There was no use in saying “We don’t want it; we won’t have it; our forebears left Europe to avoid these quarrels; we have founded a new world which has no contact with the old. “There was no use in that. The long arm reaches out remorselessly, and every one’s existence, environment, and outlook undergo a swift and irresistible change. What is the explanation, Mr. President, of these strange facts, and what are the deep laws to which they respond? I will offer you one explanation - there are others, but one will suffice.

The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilised world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.

If this has been proved in the past, as it has been, it will become indisputable in the future. The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility. Although we live in a period so tumultuous that little can be predicted, we may be quite sure that this process will be intensified with every forward step the United States make in wealth and in power. Not only are the responsibilities of this great Republic growing, but the world over which they range is itself contracting in relation to our powers of locomotion at a positively alarming rate.

We have learned to fly. What prodigious changes are involved in that new accomplishment! Man has parted company with his trusty friend the horse and has sailed into the azure with the eagles, eagles being represented by the infernal (loud laughter) - I mean internal -combustion engine. Where, then, are those broad oceans, those vast staring deserts? They are shrinking beneath our very eyes. Even elderly Parliamentarians like myself are forced to acquire a high degree of mobility.

But to the youth of America, as to the youth of all the Britains, I say “You cannot stop.” There is no halting-place at this point. We have now reached a stage in the journey where there can be no pause. We must go on. It must be world anarchy or world order.

Parents who decide to accept the task of educating their children have taken on a great responsibility.  The importance and significance of that decision cannot be described too gently, nor can the weight of it be made lighter by speaking of it only in details rather than the big picture.  Whether in one-room schoolhouses, classrooms overflowing with 40 students, at kitchen tables, or in virtual Internet classrooms, the importance and enormity of the task cannot be understated, nor its purpose.

The fundamental purpose of education is to pass the wisdom of one generation to the next, to inculcate the next generation from the mistakes of the previous, and to prepare them to be the gatekeepers of all the world has learned, and all that we have become.

The Churchill quote from that speech is often misquoted and misstated.  “With greatness comes responsibility” is often how it is phrased, but that is not what he said.  He said the price of greatness is responsibility.  No more fine a point can be made than that.  It is not an option nor a choice, as if we’re selecting the vegetable dish from a price-fixed menu.  One cannot separate the price of greatness from its responsibility, nor the price of liberty from its duties.

Either we believe that this great experiment that began with the Enlightenment is the right direction, or we do not.  Either we believe that man is capable of managing his destiny, or he is not.  Either we believe that capitalism is better than socialism or we do not.  Either we believe that man is capable of living an ordered, honest and productive life, or he is not.

We have to take a position. 

In the last 80 years we have become fuzzy in our positions, allowing, under the guise of “openness,” for every idea, however failed it might be, to be examined and presented with equal merit.

Do we present “murder” as a viable alternative to respecting life?  We do not, because we are certain that murder is wrong.  It is not a debatable topic.  If someone suggested that we should consider alternatives to having prohibitions on murder, or take statements such as “being closed minded and unwilling to hear alternative points of view” to deter us from teaching what is true, it would not be given a platform.  That is because we are certain that our convictions are correct.  It is only when people are desirous of undermining the Great Experiment, of altering the history and changing our direction, that they wish to have us be open about it, clear in their intention of inserting their authority over us.

It does not matter what your positions are, but be certain of them.  If you believe in creationism, then teach it as the one true answer.  If you do not believe it, allow your passions and convictions to come through as you explain what it is.

If you believe that America is evil or that Capitalism is cruel, then teach that, but back it up with facts and evidence so that your children are protected from those who wish to undermine them.

Be honest with your children.  Be aggressive in your passions, not wishy-washy and passive.

History, literature, the sciences and the arts are imbued with passion, conflict, blood, war, and folly.  They’re three dimensional, complicated, and controversial.  A child needs to know that the world and all that man has done and achieved, tried and failed, had costs, consequences, nuances, supporters and detractors.  It cannot be distilled in one paragraph, or revised so as not to offend one’s sensibilities, or become politically correct.

Man’s history IS offensive, but it is also kind, considerate, mistake-prone, and forgivable. 

It is through the passion of your convictions that the world will come alive to your children, and this thing we call “education” will become their lifelong pursuit. 

Educating Your Children XII:  The Beginning and the End and Three Rs

This will be my last post in the series.  I thought it would be about a dozen posts, and it is.

The most important thing you need to teach your children is reading, writing, and arithmetic.  From that trilogy, all else will be possible.

I’ve harped about prerequisites in this series and that point cannot be made too many times.  You can’t run until you can walk… and it is teaching your children to walk that is the fundamental portion of their K through 12 education.  They must know HOW to learn and if you have that as your primary goal, they will fill in the gaps.

We focus a lot on statistics, about how Americans aren’t keeping up with the world in math and science.  Our math scores are compared to others in the world, and we look miserable by comparison.

The reality, however, is that only about 5% of the population will go into the fields of math and science.  Beyond understanding basic mathematics, sufficient to balance your checkbook, prepare a budget, forecast income, calculate a tip, measure lumber to build a fence, do your taxes, figure out the net price of a sale item, we don’t need much more math than that.  Those who do will figure it out.

Intelligence will not be denied.  Curiosity will never be sated. 

If a child is predisposed to science, you’ll know that, and respond accordingly.  If a child is a wizard at math, they’ll practically teach it to themselves.  You need only leave the books around for them to find, and respond to their questions if they have them.

What is important, however, is not to teach in generalities--to present a topic that cannot be tested and proved by some other means.

Except for those who are savant-like in their development, a child should not be taught physics until they can perform the mathematics calculations to prove it.  You can’t play the piano until you understand the notes, recognize the black keys from the white, and have mastered the scales.  All of these are fundamentals, and the heavy lifting done, the sonatas and application of the formulas become the reward for learning the foundation.

All parents, including those who do not home-school, are responsible for their child’s education.  Every parent is responsible for teaching their child how to function in the world--to speak, to show good manners, to be able to be self-sufficient, to have the skills to perform a job.  That is not education.  That is parenting.

As home-educators we have double-duty.  We have to fulfill all our obligations as parents, providing our children with basic life-on-earth skills and the proper use of tools in our environments, but we also take on the responsibility of their educations, and that is the Three Rs.

The difference seemed to be that while education was still spoken of as a “preparation for life,” the preparation was of a kind which bore less directly on intellect and character than in former times, and more directly on proficiency. It aimed at what we used to call training rather than education; and it not only did very little with education, but seemed to assume that training was education, thus overriding a distinction that formerly was quite clear. Forty years ago a man trained to proficiency in anything was respected accordingly, but was not regarded as an educated man, or “just as good,” on the strength of it. A trained mechanic, banker, dentist or man of business got all due credit for his proficiency, but his education, if he had any, lay behind that and was not confused with it. His training, in a word, bore directly upon what he could do or get, while his education bore directly on neither; it bore upon what he could become and be.

--Albert Jay Nock, The Disadvantages of Being Educated

An education has nothing to do with what we do to make a living, but is who we are, what we believe, and how we approach the world.  We are educated in what is known, what man has done, what he has achieved, and what (in various times and places) he has believed to be his origins and purpose.

There is no way to learn any of that, to be educated, without reading.

If your home-schooled child does nothing besides a half-hour of arithmetic practice and the rest of his day reading, you will be providing to him an education.  Everything else is superfluous to that end.

We test his understanding through writing and speaking--to be able to express his ideas in the written form, and to present to the world what he has learned through reading.

There is no right way, but there are better ways--ways that have been shown through the miracle of hindsight to be the most advantageous, long lasting, and with better outcome.  And that better way is through the reading of Western Civilization’s gift to each generation:  The Western Canon.

The Western Canon is huge.  A person can spend their entire life reading from it, and never finish it.  At some point we have to specialize, but we can sample sections from it, finding authors and subjects in each category.

If a child can read, truly read (not just recite or recognize the words), but understand the meaning and intent, then they can learn anything, be anything, and do anything.

You have to begin at that beginning, with understanding how to read, beyond the mechanics of alphabet, sentence structure, and form. 

I can recommend no better way to start than with Mortimer J. Adler’s How to Read a Book Book, first mastered by the parents, and then conveyed in drips and drabs to the student, until they can read and understand it on their own.  If that needs support then add Harold Bloom’s, How to Read and Why.

The second is The Great Conversation, which is the primer to the Western Canon and the Socratic tradition.

The Great Conversation:

At a time when the West is most often represented by its friends as the source of that technology for which the whole world yearns and by its enemies as the fountainhead of selfishness and greed, it is worth remarking that, though both elements can be found in the great conversation, the Western ideal is not one or the other strand in the conversation, but the conversation itself. It would be an exaggeration to say that Western civilization means these books. The exaggeration would lie in the omission of the plastic arts and music, which have quite as important a part in Western civilization as the great productions included in this set. But to the extent to which books can present the idea of a civilization, the idea of Western civilization is here presented.

These books are the means of understanding our society and ourselves. They contain the great ideas that dominate us without our knowing it. There is no comparable repository of our tradition. To put an end to the spirit of inquiry that has characterized the West it is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is to leave them unread for a few generations. On the other hand, the revival of interest in these books from time to time throughout history has provided the West with new drive and creativeness. Great Books have salvaged, preserved, and transmitted the tradition on many occasions similar to our own.

The books contain not merely the tradition, but also the great exponents of the tradition. Their writings are models of the fine and liberal arts. They hold before us what Whitehead called “‘the habitual vision of greatness.” These books have endured because men in every era have been lifted beyond themselves by the inspiration of their example, Sir Richard Livingstone said: “We are tied down, all our days and for the greater part of our days, to the commonplace. That is where contact with great thinkers, great literature helps. In their company we are still in the ordinary world, but it is the ordinary world transfigured and seen through the eyes of wisdom and genius. And some of their vision becomes our own.”

Anthologies and abridged versions of the Canon’s contents are available for children of all ages, until they have mastered the language and the art of the Conversation to read the originals, in their unabridged forms.

These include (but only as a sampler):

• Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages, by Harold Bloom
• The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, by Harold Bloom
• A Treasury of Children’s Literature, by Armand Eisen
• The Golden Book of Fairy Tales, by Adrienne Segur
• A Child’s Book of Stories, Rh Value Publishing
• Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children, by William F. Russell
• Great Illustrated Classics for Girls
• Great Illustrated Classics for Boys

Continue your search with:

• Illustrated Classics
• Harold Bloom
• The Great Books
• The Good Books

Choose a mathematics curriculum and STICK with it, such as:

• Saxon

Supplement with Logic and Socratic Discussion, and seek out discussion groups and Socratic society resources.

Pay attention to your child and revise, expand, or remodel your home-school to tailor it to your child’s learning style, intelligence, and passions.  You don’t have to do everything at the same grade level, as your child will be ahead in some areas and behind in others.  More than anything, set rules and codes of conduct early, allowing your child to model the behavior at younger ages, so it won’t come as a huge shock to them as they get older.  Discipline is not something to be taught and instilled later.

Don’t be afraid of TV, pop culture, or peer groups.  Your child has YOU as their grounding rod, and while peer activities should ALWAYS be supervised, a child has to learn to cope and get along with other people in the world.  Your child should not be cut off from other people completely, nor should they be alienated from TV or popular culture that will provide a kind of common-currency with which to engage others.  Public school settings, where your child cannot be supervised by you (or protected) are to be avoided, but not because there are other people there, but because they are unnatural settings, with too small a ratio of adults to children.

Children don’t have to be taught how to be children, or ridiculous assertions of “socialization” with children, because we’re not preparing our children to be children--we’re preparing them to be adults.  We’re only children for the first 16 years of our lives, and our ability to socialize with adults, to carry on conversations with adults and inquire with respect and deference, are life-lasting accomplishments.  The family is a “social network” so your children will not be denied “socialization” by refusing to put them in “day prisons” (which is what public schools are).

Throughout your child’s adult life they will be able to make choices--to choose to drink or not, to choose to work for a particular employer or not, or to choose their friends and mates.  That does not occur in a public school setting.  A child is denied the opportunity to practice making GOOD choices, because all choices are denied to them.  They cannot “quit” a class if the teacher is incompetent or the peer group hostile.  They cannot decide to “work from home” or refuse to continue to take abuse from authoritarian figures, as we would quit a hostile job. They cannot choose an alternate curriculum, course of study, or determine the amount of time they spend on a subject before switching topics, because all of that is denied to them.

The public education system was designed, LITERALLY, to turn out factory worker drones.  It was an unHoly alliance between communists and Capitalist manufacturers to subdue the spirit, to tame the individual, so he would conform to assembly line work.  They’re taught not to speak, not to ask questions, not to have interests, not to have passions, and to eat, sleep, and move at the sound of bells and whistles.

If you were a product of the public school system, you need to educate yourself on the history, and break the bad habits that were instilled in you.  Read the authors who understand the history of education:

• Sol Stern (various)
• Thomas Sowell (Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas)
• Martin Anderson (The Decline of the American University)
• Allan Bloom (The Closing of the American Mind
• Dinesh D’Souza, (Illiberal Education)
• John Taylor Gatto (various)
• Heather MacDonald (various)

If you have young children or have not yet had children, you’re lucky.  You get a few extra years to prepare yourself, to educate yourself, so you can be worthwhile to your children as their educator.

But you better get busy.  There’s a lot for you to read, know, and master before you join the ranks of the rest of us home-educators.

And I am always an email away… for as long as I live, I extend an open invitation to everyone who takes on this crazy, impossible, Herculean effort:  the mrs -at- mrsdutoit -dot- com.  I may not always be able to answer your specific question, respond in a timely manner, or have “all” the answers… but I’m willing to give it a try, and be the cheerleader in your corner.

My home-schooling days are temporarily over, at least the full burden.  Our children are now adults, in college, and were released into the world with the skills and sufficient foundations to be BS proof, but with open minds to consider good ideas, and to be able to recognize the difference.  We are and will continue to be their guides and mentors, and look forward to the day when we have grandchildren, and can begin from the beginning.

(The entire series may be viewed on a single page here.)

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