Toast pops up!

Sorry, I couldn't resist; I'm a little short on sleep. Hope y'all are having fun
back in this hemisphere!

Karen Toast Conger <ktoast@...> wrote:
> I'm going to leap on this one, too. At this rate, Behan won't even have to log
in. For comparison of learning models, s/v Don Quixote managed about 6 weeks
before we ditched Calvert and have used a DIY curriculum ever since (~5 years).
We are nowhere near unschoolers since we're big devotees of the text book, the
whip, and the regular, routinized torture of our children on the rack of
Important Things to Know. It's a Type A habit that Frank has spent years more or
less unsuccessfully trying to talk us out of. On the other hand, we've learned a
lot from our unschooling friends about how little the choice of curriculum
really matters... and all that really matters is that the girls keep asking us
for more.
>
> Let's start with digesting or restating some of your objectives/issues:
> 1 Limited bandwidth because of family obligations
> 2 Concern about covering all subject matter sufficiently
> 3 Prior "in box" experiences that were less than 100% positive
> 4 Child with Strong Opinions
>
> A pre-packaged curriculum has the advantage of addressing 1 and 2. Buy the box
that matches the academic age of your child and >poof<. No worries. However, it
runs afoul of 3 and 4.
>
> I'd like to tear down the assumption that pre-packaged sets are quicker to
select/build/pickup/purchase. You're already learning that not all packages are
created equal. I've been doing this for years. It seems like reviewing the
packages is just as time consuming as simply pulling down a few sample programs
for the academic age of your child and then jotting down a list of textbooks,
subjects, learning objectives, and materials. I then go on to Amazon and go
shopping. Generally, our "package" ends up costing less and looking somewhat
like a boxed curriculum but adapted for each child (e.g. one is great in math,
another in language, one kid really likes the Steck and Vaughn while the other
is dead set on using the Pearson NZ books). You can still address 2 (subject
matter) by simply pulling down the reading list and textbook selection from the
major package curriculum. There is so much overlap that you can very quickly
glean a good sense of learning targets for the academic age of your child.
>
> Now people who know the Conger girls know that we hated our experienced with
Calvert and my child are nothing if not strongly opinionated. If they don't like
what they are learning, they dig in their heels, point to the Maiers, and laugh
at my husband and I. Building our own curriculum, however, has gone a long way
to smoothing the path. When the girls don't like a text book, we ditch it and
find another way to learn the subject. We went through 3 math programs before we
found one that they really liked. We quite literally and gleefully threw
overboard a science book that wasn't cutting the mustard and replaced it for two
months with a book on the aquatic life of the Sea of Cortez. Jaime refuses to
write so horrible parents that we are, we force her to write about subjects she
loves to study like dogs, chemistry, and auto mechanics (this week).
>
> Allow your children to tell you that they hate something. Show them you are
listening by throwing it away and getting something else. Don't worry about them
missing the subject. No one needs to know all that stuff... truly. What everyone
needs to know is how to learn. What everyone must get to the end of the "school
age years" with is a joy in learning and a desire to learn more. When you run
into something you feel you can not skip no way no how, dig in your heels and
start bargaining... but make those situations rare and remember that even if
your child refuses to learn decimals today, she's going to be hot to learn them
as soon as she finds herself in a country with an 8.5% sales tax.
>
> And please let me reassure you of this salient fact... unless you crawl into
the bilge and never encourage your child to learn in any way whatsoever, they
will "keep up with the Jones" attending shore side schools. The longer I
homeschool, the more amazed I am that our society remains afloat at all given
the quality of the average public school education. Children left to their own
devices have an astonishing capacity for learning which we as homeschool
educators or unschool family members simply need to facilitate.
>
> ~ Toast
> s/v Don Quixote
> La Paz, Mexico (FINALLY!)
>