Teachable Moments

One thing I have come to cherish about educating my own child are the little unplanned "teachable moments".

Today I had such a moment during my 7-year-old daughter's science lesson. The science lesson was a basic exercise in observation and measurement, and included the assignment of weighing five small objects on a kitchen scale and recording their weights in a notebook.

One of the objects my daughter selected was a small box of orange Jell-O. The box weighed exactly 95 grams, which in and of itself caused my daughter to gasp in amazement. It weighed so much more, after all, than the quarter or the pencil. Glancing over her shoulder, I pointed out to her the small numbers on the corner of the Jell-O box that indicated a net weight of 85 grams.

"Why do you think the box says it weighs less than the scale does?" I asked my daughter.

She bit her lip. "The box might be wrong?" I have already trained her to have a healthy skepticism of packages and advertising.

"That's a possibility." I said. "It could be wrong. But usually packages are pretty accurate when they tell you how much the stuff inside the box weighs."

Picking up my emphasis on the word inside, she perked up. "The box probably weighs extra!"

"Maybe!" I said. "How much extra, do you think? If the Jell-O plus the box weighs 95 grams, but the Jell-O itself only weighs 85 grams, how much do you think the box weighs?" We had just practiced "completing the ten" in math, along with word problems, so I was really hoping she'd get this.

"10 grams!" she said.

"Let's find out if you're right!"  I tore open the box and dumped the Jell-O powder into a bowl. Anything in the name of education. Besides, if anything deserved a fruity gelatinous dessert reward, this certainly qualified.

I gave the empty box to my daughter to place on the scale and held my breath, hoping I wouldn't be forced to explain margins of error.

Fortunately, as if on cue, the number 10 appeared on the scale. I let out a sigh of relief.

"I was RIGHT!" My daughter squealed triumphantly, her face beaming with pride.

I'm not sure which of us was more excited.

I know all parents can experience moments like these no matter how their children are educated, but home education certainly affords more opportunities.

Aside from increased opportunity, there is also a fundamental shift in mindset that comes with the decision to take responsibility for the education of one's own children. I considered myself a relatively engaged and involved parent when my child attended public school, but I do have to admit there was a large part of me that considered her education somebody else's job. Adding to that the burnt-out exhaustion that comes 6:30 am alarms, buses to catch, arbitrary projects to keep up on, permission slips to sign, homework to do, I can't honestly say I was actively engaging my daughter in critical thinking exercises as much as I would have liked.

Would I have had her weigh a box of Jell-O if she were still in public school? If she for some reason had, would I have extended the experience by reading box weights, asking questions, and stopping to make an unplanned bowl of Jell-O just to prove the answer?

I don't think I would have, and I am so very grateful that today, I did.

Curriculum Selection and the Free Exchange of Ideas

My seven-year-old daughter recently completed her phonics program, conveniently coinciding with her self-realization that she is capable of true, independent reading.

This, of course, opens up a wealth of opportunities for learning. No longer is her learning limited by her five physical senses, but the awakening of a sixth mental sense enables her to independently absorb and process information in a whole new way.

The past week I have simply allowed her to revel in her newfound superpower by giving her ample time to read simple chapter books and other library selections at her reading level. Absent our usual phonics lessons, however, and armed with her ability to read, I realized we would be best served if I devised a concrete plan as to where her education should progress from here. We have both been satisfied with her math curriculum, but everything else had thus far taken a back seat to phonics.

The whole process of curriculum selection has been something I have found daunting from the start. While I am not a firm believer in the absolute necessity of a firm curriculum for homeschooling, I do find some structure helpful. Selecting one, however, proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. Up until now, it has been natural to procrastinate in order to allow my daughter to focus on learning to read, supplemented by a solid mathematics curriculum and the random exploration of social studies and science.

While shopping curricula, I encountered two major obstacles to making a choice. The first, with all due respect to my Christian friends, is the incredible abundance of Christian-based curricula available. Some of these curricula are by all accounts excellent. We are Jewish, and even though many non-Christian homeschoolers modify these materials for their use, I did not really wish to take it upon myself to determine which curricula might be adaptable to my beliefs and which might not.

The second obstacle is that many secular curricula replicate public school at home. The same flawed educational philosophy that is burdensome in a classroom is even less relevant in the home environment, where time-management and testing strategies intended to address issues of classroom management are completely unnecessary.

Additionally, many of these curricula, whether of the secular or religious variety, are in my opinion unnecessarily commercial. They are packaged with piles of expensive books that could be just as easily borrowed from the library, binders of materials that could just as easily be digitized, and consumable materials that can in many cases be obtained more economically by simply looking around one's home. On the other side, many of the more economical curricula lack quality and substance.

Sorting through it all can be a nightmare, and the free access of information on the internet is a double-edged sword. Anyone can publish on the internet, which results in piles of garbage, but also a few independently produced jewels that would have been virtually inaccessible prior to the advent of the world wide web. Not only can an independent educator produce a quality curriculum without access to publishing resources, but he has the capacity to make his case for his curriculum, and a potential buyer has an opportunity to preview content and discuss it with other homeschoolers online. Independents in this and many other media fields are no longer relegated to obscure catalogs, but can now present themselves to the world for scrutiny. They sink or swim on their own merits rather than remaining at the mercy of publishing or media industries.

The math curriculum I have been using thus far is created and sold digitally by such an independent educator, and after much searching, I finally have made my choice as to which general curriculum we will use. First Step appears to be similarly excellent, and though it lacks professional typesetting and editing, its values and approach to education appear match my own.

I can only surmise that this freedom also plays into the dramatic increase in popularity of homeschooling over the past decade. With so much information so freely available, the pedestal of the establishment comes crashing down. We do not have to accept the educational philosophy of the state, or even listen solely to the music that the recording industry arbitrarily chooses to publish. Ideas are now on a more even playing field, empowering us to make freer and more informed choices, not only related to education, but to virtually every aspect of our lives.

SpellQuizzer Giveaway

Liberated Education is hosting a SpellQuizzer giveaway!

SpellQuizzer (reviewed here) is a spelling utility that can be used with any homeschool spelling curriculum or teacher-assigned spelling list from school.

If you are interested in a chance to win a free SpellQuizzer license (retails for $29.95), post a comment below. The deadline is Monday, March 15th, 2010 after which a winner will be selected at random and contacted via e-mail.

Spelling Program Review

Last week, I was contacted by creators of SpellQuizzer to review their product.

As I mentioned in a previous review, I have thus far been using a spelling program in the bundled online ClickNKids phonics/spelling curriculum with great success. It is a full spelling curriculum, but for early readers only. While my first grader is progressing well with the program, it is a program that definitely has a limited lifespan. It is marketed as a K-3 program, but I anticipate we will be done with it before the end of this year.

So, this being the case, I was glad to accept an invitation to review a spelling program.

I will say right out that SpellQuizzer is not a spelling curriculum, but rather a spelling utility. It is a very versatile and powerful tool for just about anyone with a school-aged child, whether the child is being educated at home or in a traditional classroom setting. It is not, however, plug-and-play. The program only includes a few sample lists, and is tool that requires input from a teacher, parent, or student, either in the form of custom lists or by downloading additional lists from SpellQuizzer. While it is fairly simple to use, it is not as immediately intuitive as some "kid" programs, and younger children may require adult support in setting up a spelling list. Older students can enter their own spelling words and even record audio in order to simulate their own spelling test at home.

The program's user interface is very spartan. There are no childish bells or whistles, making it suitable for use all the way through high school, though certainly spelling lists can be customized with amusing audio to entertain younger users. Upon loading it up, options are presented to create a list, edit a list, take a quiz, or to import/export lists, which I presume is especially useful for classroom use. The program includes suitable help documentation and an automatic spellchecker that includes both US and UK English.

Spelling lists can be created using any words you wish, and audio recitation of the word, including use in a sentence, is definitely recommended for optimum results. I was delighted to discover that the program allows for repeated instances of the same word, with different recorded sentences, which allows for diverse quizzing on homophones. There are options for spelling words to be quizzed in succession or in random order, or you can manually change the order of words in a spelling list if you choose.

On the technical side, while the user interface is nothing special, SpellQuizzer appears to be cleanly programmed. I did not encounter any bugs or crashes, and the program is not an inexplicable resource hog, which is something I've encountered with many other educational programs.

I can honestly recommend SpellQuizzer. For $29.95 it is a great, evergreen tool to have on hand for both classroom students and homeschoolers. Additionally, it would make a fantastic tool for many elementary teachers and English teachers.

Stay tuned, as we hope to host a SpellQuizzer giveaway in the near future!

The Age Dynamic

The first time I took my daughter to the homeschool P.E. class at the local YMCA, I was alarmed to discover that the activities were separated into just two age groups; one for ages 5-11 and another for those ages 12-18.

When I eyed the pre-adolescent boys approaching from the parking lot, I have to admit I had second thoughts. "My 7-year-old daughter playing dodgeball with 11-year-old boys?" I thought. "Are you KIDDING me?" I was a new homeschooling parent and this was my first experience with any kind of group activity.

I do think my cause for concern had some validity. In American society at large, where most children are grouped by exact ages for schoolwork, recess, and extracurricular activities, many children never learn how to appropriately and comfortably interact with children of different ages. I know many parents who are uncomfortable with the idea of their young child merely sitting for ten minutes on the same bus with fifth graders. This concern is not entirely without reason, as many young children in this setting are intimidated by children even a year or two older, and many older children remain unfamiliar with how to treat younger children. I myself have a memory of playing at recess as a kindergartner and hearing the sing-song voices of first graders mocking "Lit-tle ba-bay kin-der-gartners! Lit-tle ba-by kin-der-gartners" as they clutched on to the chain-link fence that segregated the kindergarten playground.

So when the group of homeschooled children, including some giant ten and eleven-year-old boys, gathered around their teacher at the YMCA, I was a bit unsettled. My nerves became really frazzled as I heard the teacher announce that the children were going to play something called "scatterball". I'm still not clear on the rules, but it sounded like a hybrid between dodgeball and unmitigated chaos. I watched with reservation as my tiny first grader trotted after them, looking a little insecure herself. Jeff, the instructor, seemed like a very responsible young man, so I swallowed my reservations, sent up a brief prayer, and drove off to pick up my four-year-old and her friend from their preschool program.

Fifteen minutes later, with two preschoolers in two, I pulled my Sienna into the parking lot adjacent to the field where the group of kids were playing scatterball. I cringed as a giant, prepubescent hooligan hurled a red rubber ball full force at another, sending him out of the game.

Then, at the next opportunity, the same monster turned around with ball in hand to confront my daughter. I held my breath. The fifth-grade boy - perhaps not a monster after all - lobbed the ball towards my daughter with first-grade force. She tried her best to dodge out of the way. She failed, but the ball bounced harmlessly off her leg. This boy had treated her fairly, with the judgement of an adult playing a game with young children. He knew not only to lob the ball more gently at her, but also to include her in the game. "Of course," I said to myself. "He is homeschooled. He knows how to interact with children of all ages. He does not spend all his waking hours exclusively with 11-year-olds."

This concept is not entirely new to me. My daughter spent a year enrolled in a Montessori preschool, and Marie Montessori's philosophy included stressing the importance of a multi-age experience for children in the course of their education. While there will be those that are skeptical of the viability of a multi-age classroom, to me there is no doubt that there is great social value in giving children the opportunity to interact with a diverse age group.

In Defense of Screen Time

There is an increased emphasis on the reduction of "screen time", that is, time spent by children in front of "screens" whether it be television, console gaming, or computer use. I have always had a bit of a problem with these campaigns in that parents who make the mistake of substituting technology for creativity and relationships are not the same people who are going to read parenting articles about the perils of screen time. Certainly I agree that a heavy diet Spongebob Squarepants or Hannah Montana is not the best investment of a child's growing mind, but I fear more worthy productions are unfairly cast into the same category of technology that is judged as vile and blamed for the epidemic of ADHD.

At the same time, those who do take these recommendations seriously I think sometimes take them too seriously. I have heard well-educated and well-meaning parents proclaim that they would never subject their child to film or software presentation of educational materials when books are an option. Books are revered, as if books are not also a kind of information technology.

Particularly in regards to homeschooling, it in my humble estimation a mistake not to take advantage of the variety of technology now available to the educator. While I do believe books and printed materials are essential tools to the homeschooling parent, these materials do not engage as wide a variety of learning styles as computer and video productions that integrate audio, visual, and musical elements into learning.

Ideally these subjects might be best experienced in vivid reality. To quote philosopher and education reformer John Dewey, "Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself." Dewey's philosophy grew out of the early 20th century as the public school as we know it today really took root in American society. While the public school served to provide an education to the masses, it divorced the child from the education provided by the rich personal experience of touching, feeling, and doing. When a real experience is not possible, modern technology can enhance what can be gleaned from books. While it may be most educational to travel the Mississippi River itself, a video where the student can see and hear the subject offers something that a map and a book cannot.

Homeschooling has increased in popularity in recent years I believe in part to the existence of the internet. Parents now have access to information, videos, programs, and curricula that exceed that of the public school teacher whose hands are often tied by federal, state, and district regulations. Between downloadable content, interactive online lessons, videos and educational web sites and articles for educators, the parent no longer needs to rely on the education system to access all he or she needs to provide their child with a quality education. Many online or video programs, such as Teaching Textbooks and ClicknKids, offer instructors more skilled and articulate than either the parent OR the public school teacher. Utilizing these resources, many parents find their kids more self-motivated and independent.

This is not to say that the internet is a replacement for the public school system, but that in the 21st century, the resourceful, intelligent, dedicated parent has much greater capacity to take responsibility for educating their own child, and information technology and audio-visual media are both key tools to enable this unprecedented level of freedom in education.