tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post5502515557796645789..comments2024-03-26T04:19:38.862-07:00Comments on kitchen table math, the sequel: Homeschooling by the NumbersCatherine Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03347093496361370174noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-18644164121575730642010-10-12T05:54:46.521-07:002010-10-12T05:54:46.521-07:00Allison--You may want to take a look at the Well T...Allison--You may want to take a look at the Well Trained Mind Forums. Homeschoolers who spend time there are acutely aware that Saxon has multiple deficiencies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-47570179755807823162010-10-11T22:45:06.004-07:002010-10-11T22:45:06.004-07:00Oh, and on the relative scale of math textbooks: t...Oh, and on the relative scale of math textbooks: the Singapore Math series is so much better than Saxon for K-6 that everyone should be asking their schools and their homeschoolers why they aren't using them, period. No more "Saxon and Singapore" in the same sentence, the way CK does. One is PROFOUNDLY better for children.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-2325564654331003152010-10-11T22:28:58.962-07:002010-10-11T22:28:58.962-07:00Actually, no, I no longer believe that this will t...Actually, no, I no longer believe that this will turn out fine. The more I talk to schools, high school students, teachers of algebra and beyond, the more I see that math ed is really in a crisis beyond anything we complain about here. Their visible concrete needs aren't getting kids capable of doing college work. The 98% cannot do the math required for a non-STEM major in college. THAT'S A PROBLEM.<br /><br />Claiming all US textbooks are bad is necessary if it's true. If it doesn't feel super useful, that's because of our over reliance on textbooks. That is, our math knowledge is too weak to recognize the difference between curricula and textbook, and is too weak to fix issues in the textbooks when teaching our kids. A teacher is supposed to do more than provide a textbook.<br /><br />The reason I brought up Saxon is to point out that most homeschoolers are deeply unable to provide a math program that will allow their children to succeed in high school math or do well on the SAT. Yes, most teachers have this problem too. But an experienced math teacher CAN make up for the deficiencies of Saxon. Home schoolers get the message over and over again that there are no deficiencies. That needs correcting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-91922753886516921852010-10-11T18:00:32.843-07:002010-10-11T18:00:32.843-07:00"Saxon *isn't* a good curriculum for a pa...<i>"Saxon *isn't* a good curriculum for a parent or teacher that can't make up for its deficiencies. It can get you part of the way to where you want--through brute force alone, it can remediate someone is who crawling and get them to walk."</i><br /><br />I think we need to be careful about making the perfect the enemy of the good.<br /><br />If we consider the universe of math curricula up to, but not including Algebra, we get a list that starts off looking something like this:<br /><br />*) TERC<br />*) Everyday Math<br />*) MathLand (gone, I think)<br />*) Saxon<br />*) Singapore<br /><br />In some respect, I'd suggest that they all fail by providing algorithms, but not underlying principles. Some are worse than others, but they all seem to eventually focus on procedure and not on principle.<br /><br />But ... for 98+% of the folks out there, this will turn out to be fine! Not ideal, but fine. Even the majority of people who end up taking calculus will wind up with a procedural, but not principled understanding.<br /><br />It appears that you, Allison, are aiming for a principled approach to K-8 math, which would be nice to have :-) But it is easy to set the bar so high as to consider *all* currently existing curricula bad (in some sense, if this *isn't* the case, you would probably just be pushing that already existing curriculum). But claiming that all are bad (a) isn't super useful, and (b) hides the fact that there is still a relative ranking of bad.<br /><br />My personal stacking puts Singapore Math on top, followed by Saxon. But, if I had to recommend a text to someone who wasn't comfortable with math I'd probably recommend Saxon.<br /><br />With luck, you'll come up with something even better than what we have, but you also might come up with something that 98+% just don't care about. Because it goes way beyond their very concrete needs. They might be *wrong* about this, but still ...<br /><br />-Mark RouloAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-63507941083317412592010-10-11T17:59:00.627-07:002010-10-11T17:59:00.627-07:00I used Saxon Math a couple years ago as a classroo...I used Saxon Math a couple years ago as a classroom teacher. I was excited to be using it because I had heard such good things about it. I was surprised by what I found. Before using it, I didn't know how much it skips around, nor that it teaches things out of order. <br /><br />As you said in a previous post, there is no perfect curriculum, but there are better ones. I don't know that I'd put Saxon in the category of better, but I sure wouldn't put Investigations in there, or CMP. Is Singapore better? How about Jump Math by John Mighton? Math Mammoth by Maria Miller? None of those programs are perfect.K9Sashahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07772723620696175949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-10353923999487606822010-10-11T17:41:49.595-07:002010-10-11T17:41:49.595-07:00But who is reviewing the reviewers?
Those sites c...But who is reviewing the reviewers?<br /><br />Those sites can be helpful, just as excellent Amazon book reviews can be very helpful. But when the bad has become normal, you have to know enough to evaluate the curriculum or the evaluator.<br /><br />Saxon Math is well liked by all sorts of homeschoolers. Saxon Math for grades 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 is riddled with major mathematical errors, from the fact that they predicate certain lessons on material they never named let alone taught, to lack of definitions, misuse of laws, etc. And despite all of the lauding about how it does distributed practice, its constant shifting from one subject to the next teaches children that math is not sequential but is random. It is anxiety producing to never be able to predict what will come next everywhere else in one's life--it isn't suddenly healthy to do this in an academic setting. <br /><br />No one would ever think of teaching history by randomly picking a new decade to teach, and asking distributed practice questions about a set of ten prior decades. Yet this is what Saxon does in their middle school curriculum.<br /><br />Saxon *isn't* a good curriculum for a parent or teacher that can't make up for its deficiencies. It can get you part of the way to where you want--through brute force alone, it can remediate someone is who crawling and get them to walk. But it will teach them to walk with a limp, in a way that prevents many of them from ever running.<br /><br />Fundamentally, homeschooling parents are parents who homeschool, not teachers who happen to be parents. I think reaching them as parents may really be the only common ground.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-30489493895624575192010-10-11T17:15:35.844-07:002010-10-11T17:15:35.844-07:00As a tutor, the first place I look for materials t...As a tutor, the first place I look for materials to use with students is on homeschool curricula review sites. As a broad generalization, homeschooling parents tend to choose traditional curricula that directly teach skills in a (relatively) efficient way. Homeschooling sites are where I found Singapore Math, Phonics Pathways, Megawords, and Institute for Excellence in Writing.K9Sashahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07772723620696175949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-10839795172699889502010-10-11T12:48:36.974-07:002010-10-11T12:48:36.974-07:00Addressing the main thrust of the conversation rat...Addressing the main thrust of the conversation rather than a side shoot, I agree this is an issue and it actually came up in our family not long ago.<br /><br />My husband wanted our kids to learn Spanish and I said, basically, well, yeah, we could make a stab at that, and there are a lot of good materials on the market. (And there are a lot of classes around town, as well.) Ultimately, though, it would fail.<br /><br />Why? Because I don't know Spanish, and I'm of That Age where learning a new language is pretty hard -- the kids would learn it much faster than I would. And even if I had them in an immersion class, what good would it be to speak Spanish to native speakers for 3 hours a week?<br /><br />On the other hand, I took years of French and even lived in France with a family for awhile. The particulars are long gone but but the foundation is there. When I hear Spanish, I hear a mass of undifferentiated sounds, when I hear French, I can hear all of the distinct words, even if I don't remember yet what they all mean.<br /><br />So, we learn French in our home instead of Spanish. (By "in our home," I mean take a weekly immersion class, work through Rosetta Stone and fumble through childhood readers together.)<br /><br />Of course, not every subject has that easy of an out. I can't very well say something like, "Well, I don't really get fractions, so I guess we'll just study decimals instead." On the other hand, that's why I'm here at KTM in the first place.TerriWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18200629750466604443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-15430740644849323422010-10-11T12:41:26.044-07:002010-10-11T12:41:26.044-07:00I wouldn't call it a logical extreme..it's...I wouldn't call it a logical extreme..it's the worldview I was brought up with -- if your're going to do something, contribute positively if possible. Tossing hot emotion and taking statements personally in a discussion where people are trying to tease out conclusions from facts can be helpful, but it can also detract mightily as the discussion is derailed. The point of boards like this is NOT to flame each other, but to interchange observations and ideas that can lead to greater understanding and a better experience for our children.<br /><br />Allison, I believe Liping Ma's observations would be valid for homeschoolers and afterschoolers too. The demand for the HIG for Singapore Primary Math is evidence, as is the demand for Kumon, JHU, Stanford's EPGY and the like. People simply don't have the knowledge needed to take their children to an honors level of math. Websites such as Khan Academy are attesting to the deplorable condition of transferring academic knowledge in our schools.lgmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-5635678710996351482010-10-11T12:33:27.139-07:002010-10-11T12:33:27.139-07:00"Very few children have parents who really kn...<i>"Very few children have parents who really know math beyond arithmetic symbol manipulation."</i><br /><br />If you believe <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0805829091" rel="nofollow">LiPing Ma</a> of "Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics", this statement is equally true of most elementary school teachers.<br /><br />What, again, is the dissent in this thread? That most/all homeschooling parents could be doing a better job? Of course they could. That most/all K-8 teachers could be doing a better job? Sure. Very few people in either category do a perfect job every schooling day.<br /><br />So ... ?<br /><br />Allison has mentioned one very concrete example of an area in which homeschooling parents can fail to do a good job. She is correct. This is a failure mode. I doubt that *ALL* parents (and Allison doesn't claim that it is) homeschooling make this mistake.<br /><br />Some K-8 teachers probably make this mistake, too. Probably not all.<br /><br />Those in both camps that are making this mistake would do well to stop.<br /><br />Next?<br /><br />-Mark RouloAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-4066226607940285922010-10-11T12:24:57.342-07:002010-10-11T12:24:57.342-07:00But that's just a straw man. Lgm didn't pu...But that's just a straw man. Lgm didn't put up a statement that schools are better. He put up a statement about what's wrong with lacking content knowledge.<br /><br />Look, we've got a zillion threads devoted to the lack of content knowledge in school teachers. Can't we have one that admits a lack of content knowledge in plenty of homeschool teachers?<br /><br />But okay, I'll take the bait.<br />I'm offering MSMI institutes in an attempt to address the lack of knowledge elementary school teachers have in the very mathematics they teach. I'm not talking about lacking calculus or graph theory, but how they lack understanding of what elements of arithmetic are predicated on what.<br /><br />I've not yet offered the institutes to homeschoolers. I'll make this a post, and follow up there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-11853105996042494942010-10-11T12:15:12.283-07:002010-10-11T12:15:12.283-07:00Anon,
"so sometimes I just take the lazy way...Anon,<br /><br />"so sometimes I just take the lazy way out and feed him enough information to complete the assignment and get on with our evening"<br /><br />This is not unique to homeschooling. It happens all the time in schools too. One mother told me that her son was struggling with reading, so he was put into one-on-one tutoring at his school. One day, this mother asked her son what his tutor tells him to do when he comes across a word he doesn't know. He said that she tells him the word and has him move on. This teacher actually was a full-time tutor to kids who were struggling readers. Imagine how many kids she was not helping.<br /><br />Another parent told me that his son was struggling with math. Again the school put him into one-on-one tutoring. Instead of helping him understand the things he was struggling with the tutor would simply tell him what to do. They had to shell out for a tutoring center to get him the help he needed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-53163682960444247042010-10-11T12:13:26.700-07:002010-10-11T12:13:26.700-07:00Why enter an intellectual discussion if all that c...<i>Why enter an intellectual discussion if all that can be contributed is an emotional reaction? The result is just stalling the discussions that need to happen, which is basically what's happening with school budgets in my area.</i><br /><br />Huh. I think perhaps you took my comment to the logical extreme, rather than its intended purpose to explain where the reflexive defensiveness that occasionally burbles to the surface comes from. It was, after all, a response to the comment of someone saying they don't get the defensiveness. I don't believe an admission of an emotional attachment to a subject makes one unworthy of joining the conversation with the adults.<br /><br />Obviously, I'm trying to engage you intellectually here, suppressing my emotional irritation at what I perceive as your kind of insulting reply to my comment rather than just trying to flame you -- which would, of course, be the emotional response.TerriWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18200629750466604443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-61948496660584234222010-10-11T12:08:20.082-07:002010-10-11T12:08:20.082-07:00Igm,
Teachers often lack the content knowledge to...Igm,<br /><br />Teachers often lack the content knowledge too. That is one reason why our educational system is in so much trouble. Our teachers unfortunately often aren't anywhere close to being expert in the subjects they teach.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-71476917786865691862010-10-11T11:52:33.630-07:002010-10-11T11:52:33.630-07:00Why enter an intellectual discussion if all that c...Why enter an intellectual discussion if all that can be contributed is an emotional reaction? The result is just stalling the discussions that need to happen, which is basically what's happening with school budgets in my area.<br /><br />---------------------------------<br />Statements like this:<br />>>No one can tailor a lesson or curricula to the interests and abilities of a child as well as a one-on-one parent can<<<br />are nice emotional reactions, but they miss the details that are preventing the children from getting a good education. Yes, you as a parent do 'know your child best' as every educator around here fondly says, but a significant percentage of parents do not have the deep content knowledge of the subject that is necessary to understand the child's level of mastery & convey more than a cargo cult version of content. To say that situation is preferred over a having a knowledgeable content expert (a 'teacher') is not real world. Very few children have parents who really know math beyond arithmetic symbol manipulation. The rest of the children need someone knowledgeable, whether that's a relative, a teacher, a peer, or a mentor. And it's not just math, it's everything beyond the intro level. <br /><br />The other thing is - does the lesson REALLY need to be tailored as much as some parents demand? Does not having a checking account REALLY prevent the child from figuring percent interest to the point that the problems should all be tailored to only include his real world experience of shopping, and that to only involve objects he personally has experience with? Or does the child need to be allowed to think, learn new things, perhaps even struggle and use some 'what if' questions? <br /><br />Tailoring to the instructional level, yes. Many schools could do a better job. NY state could stop the practice of demanding seat time for credit and start letting capable children test out in math.lgmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-49743173548792914532010-10-11T10:41:58.804-07:002010-10-11T10:41:58.804-07:00I'm confused at the defensiveness.
Oh, I'...<i> I'm confused at the defensiveness.</i><br /><br />Oh, I'm not. Homeschooling is just one of those things that the default conventional wisdom of is negative. So you are used to being the butt of jokes, etc. But -- unlike the usual still-okay-to-be-mocked things in our culture, like obesity -- this is tied up with parenting our kids, which makes it a Big Emotional Hot Button.<br /><br />So, the defensiveness? I have it in spades, though I rarely bother to act (post?) on it. When people are talking out of ignorance, it's easy to just remember that people do get that little happy ping in their brain when putting down the way that "other folks" parent their kids. Easy to ignore and move on.<br /><br />It's harder to untangle the sting when people are making legitimate criticisms that need or should be addressed or discussed. I'd like to think that I can talk about these things without the emotional subtext, but ... well. Heh.TerriWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18200629750466604443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-78119699853294861772010-10-11T06:26:34.923-07:002010-10-11T06:26:34.923-07:00I thought the point of this thread was to talk abo...I thought the point of this thread was to talk about issues, not say that because there are issues we should give up, or default to the other option.<br /><br />-- I think most parents have their child's best interests at heart. <br /><br />And this is true whether kids are in school or not. But it doesn't get a huge part of the problem: why are their children getting such a poor education when their parents ARE doing their best to pay attention, and do have their kids' best interests at heart? <br /><br />There are lots of small reasons, adding up to big problems. Just as we on KTM bring up problems with schools, so we can educate ourselves and others, we should bring up problems with homeschools so we can educate ourselves and others.<br /><br />Again, I'm confused at the defensiveness. Wouldn't it be better to let everyone see the problems, so they can be improved? I mean, isn't that the point of KTM? Why should it be limited to traditional schooling problems?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-32364174670431368542010-10-11T03:33:36.533-07:002010-10-11T03:33:36.533-07:00Do some homeschooling parents do a terrible job? y...Do some homeschooling parents do a terrible job? yes. <br />Do some schools/teachers do a terrible job? yes.<br />Not sure where that gets us. But homeschooling offers some huge advantages that can't be duplicated in the schools -- even a "good" school. No one can tailor a lesson or curricula to the interests and abilities of a child as well as a one-on-one parent can. A dedicated homeschooling parent is better than a dedicated teacher, hands down. Is a poor homeschooling parent worse than a poor teacher? Probably. A bad homeschooling situation can go on and on, year after year, and no one can step in and correct it; theoretically that wouldn't happen in the public school.<br /><br />I may be a bit naive about this, but I think most parents have their child's best interests at heart. Just because you see a kid at a park or riding a bike, doesn't mean they aren't keeping up (or surpassing) grade level. It is very hard to make accurate judgments from afar.<br /><br />FWIW, my personal experience is that my kids got good grades and excellent report cards at school, but were bored out of their minds and spent the bulk of their day reviewing material they all ready knew. This in a school that has been consistently ranked near the top in the state. The teachers were "differentiating" instruction, which meant my kids might get a different work sheet than the kids that couldn't read.<br /><br />Also, I've seen the TAs working with the SPED kids and give up in frustration -- and just tell them the answers. What Allison points out in homeschooling parents happens in the public schools with just as great a frequency.LynnGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11467061079495021347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-60741165421748651442010-10-10T21:19:03.993-07:002010-10-10T21:19:03.993-07:00As a parent and a teacher, it is easy for me to do...As a parent and a teacher, it is easy for me to do what Allison is describing, particularly when I am tired. It is easy to lose sight of the large goal of understanding the concept and instead just accomplish the less important goal of completing the assignment. I afterschool using Singapore math with my son, and there are times when I know that he has misconceptions or is missing a key part of the concept. Diagnosing exactly what is wrong is hard work and often not something he embraces enthusiastically, so sometimes I just take the lazy way out and feed him enough information to complete the assignment and get on with our evening. It isn't in his best interest for me to do that, though. I can understand how homeschool parents could establish this interaction pattern early on and find it difficult to change.<br /><br />Saying this is more true of moms is correct in my observation as well. I am more likely to feel (incorrectly) like I am being loving when I clean up after my children or finish their chores for them, while my husband is better at taking the long-term view that these are responsibilities that they must learn to complete themselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-33541786189236658572010-10-10T20:26:54.078-07:002010-10-10T20:26:54.078-07:00I also know what Allison is talking about, and it ...I also know what Allison is talking about, and it can be subtle. We see it a lot with peer tutors. They think they are helping, but they wind up giving away the right answer without meaning to. The tutor and the student both feel like progress is being made, but with blank paper the student still can't do the work. (Of course, this is another way of saying that this can happen in non-homeschooling contexts too -- it is really common in older elementary students "helping" younger kids).ChemProfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-53141581391504695772010-10-10T18:33:04.495-07:002010-10-10T18:33:04.495-07:00I am a homeschooler and I completely understand wh...I am a homeschooler and I completely understand what Allison is talking about. I had this problem (and still do to some extent) with my now 14 year old son. He is gifted and has learning disabilities, so in order to get him to learn anything when he was younger, I had to be by his side at all times, redirecting his attention, and making sure he was on the right track. I know I asked leading questions (I still do when I'm pretty sure he could figure something out on his own with a bit of prompting). But when we got to algebra (in 5th grade) I finally realized that he had to wrestle with things totally away from me. So we would go over the lesson together and then he would leave the room and do the problem set by himself. It would take forever, because he was also experiencing untreated ADHD at the time. It was painful, but it worked.<br /><br />BTW, at the end of 8th grade, he scored at the 98th percentile on the 10th grade ITBS (as compared to 10th graders). I did not administer the test.<br /><br />He is now learning second year algebra on his own. He just received 100% on his most recent test. I was involved to the extent that I corrected it.<br /><br />He does, however, need significant input in the area of writing. Lately I've been orchestrating every step or the writing process for him. My plan is to back away gradually so that by his senior year he is able to write a paper from start to finish without input from me.<br /><br />Crimson Wife is right. It is called scaffolding. And it works great when the teacher/parent knows when to back away. Scaffolding is the reason my son with multiple learning disabilities is able to function at his intellectual level. He would never have been able to do that in a school as it requires too much maintenance.Kainoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-78465933101453240742010-10-10T16:31:38.370-07:002010-10-10T16:31:38.370-07:00Wow, I'm really not making myself clear.
Thes...Wow, I'm really not making myself clear.<br /><br />These ladies found out that their children were incapable of performing at grade level in a school setting after a few years of homeschooling. They weren't doing well on state assessments either.<br /><br />When they had other tutors come in and teach their children, they found that their children were a year or more behind where they thought they were in math and writing. And yet they showed how far they'd gotten in every book, how many perfect worksheets they'd recorded.<br /><br />They weren't having their children practice at the edge of what they could do. They were doing the work for their children, but they were unaware they were.<br /><br />If you say "you meant 15 not 16, right?" enough times, if you break down the instructions "Color in the shape represented by the cross section" for your 8 year old enough times, if you keep acting as if they would have done the right thing, or they meant to do the right thing, you are cheating everyone out of learning.<br /><br />I'm disheartened that I can't find a way to express myself so clearly as to differentiate what CW and the others are talking about from the kind of leading behaviors that John Holt talks about which undermine authentic learning. I don't know how better to express the difference. I can't see how other teachers could talk about this and separate out these issues well either. If we were in a seminar together learning teaching methods, and I brought this up, I can see how teachers wouldn't be able to distinguish the difference at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-31747555796054309102010-10-10T16:16:08.013-07:002010-10-10T16:16:08.013-07:00Allison- the practice that you're criticizing ...Allison- the practice that you're criticizing is called "scaffolding" and research has shown that it can be very effective because it allows the student to work on more challenging material than he/she could do totally independently. Daniel Coyle wrote an excellent book called <i>The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born, It's Grown</i> about how it's better to practice at the very edge of what one can do than to coast along doing too-easy stuff. <br /><br />That's not to say that independent work doesn't also have value. In a good homeschool, the student is doing a mix of both.Crimson Wifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03254830856234479999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-76683139198295128372010-10-10T13:20:16.394-07:002010-10-10T13:20:16.394-07:00I'm sorry if I wrote poorly. I was not talking...I'm sorry if I wrote poorly. I was not talking about a mother who told them to reread the problem or asked how they arrived at an incorrect answer.<br /><br />I know several homeschooling mothers who now are aware that they thought they were correcting, guiding, and teaching their children, but found out that they were instead answering for them, interpreting instructions for them, organizing their work for them, tracking their homework for them. Instead of teaching their children, they were in little ways, doing their children's work for them.<br /><br />You may have the self awareness to know when you are doing this. That's terrific. A good teacher in a classroom needs to know this line, too. Once upon a time, a good teacher was taught this. But my point is that homeschooling mothers that I know have routinely NOT had the self awareness they were doing this.<br /><br />I don't understand the defensiveness, honestly. Why be defensive that much homeschooling needs real improvement? The truth sets you free. These mothers could be taught to be better homeschoolers if they were shown the issues. Papering over them under the guise that "but schools go too far in the other direction" isn't going to help their students succeed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7691251033406320222.post-41640231307288209122010-10-10T12:01:20.800-07:002010-10-10T12:01:20.800-07:00Allison,
I actually think what those mothers are ...Allison,<br /><br />I actually think what those mothers are doing is a very good thing. Learning from your mistakes can be hugely important. Sure children need to learn to pay attention and become organized and all those other things, but elementary level children often need some help and hand holding to learn these things. It can be very unreasonable to expect young children to figure out these things on their own.<br /><br />If a child answers 13+2=16, it can be very helpful for a mother to step in and say how did you arrive at this answer? It's incorrect. Let me see you do it again. If the child was careless in his/her counting the mother can then explain that this is why they got the answer wrong and explain the importance of carefully counting. If a child misunderstood what was asked, the mother can have them reread the problem and think carefully about what is being asked of them. This is not mom covering mistakes. This is a mom teaching a child how to avoid mistakes and how to pay attention.<br /><br />Sure, if a mother is simply giving the answer that wouldn't be good. But if she is showing the child how to arrive at the right answer by clearning up confusion and misunderstanding that can very helpful. Correcting a child during the lesson isn't a bad thing if what you are doing is guiding rather than answering for them. <br /><br />Even in schools, teachers will usually walk around the class, examine the work, and step in if they see a student doing the work incorrectly. The teacher can then address mistakes and confusion and help the child through the problem.<br /><br />Obviously, by middle school expectations should be higher and students should be expected to work independently. But we need to be reasonable when it comes to younger children.FMAhttp://www.learnthingsweb.infonoreply@blogger.com