Overall education- Acceleration vs Depth

[sonya_post]

I appreciate your perspective. I do spank when kids are little - I don't see that as a problem, but there are some who might. We stop spanking on the 5th birthday as the child is no longer a toddler and spankings are for toddlers who don't know any better. Our goal is to be spanking free by 5 and burn the spanking paddle (my oldest kept his). Other than a few minor bumps in the road we do not have the teen problem in our home that many of my friends experience. I would say that is true for most of the home schooled families I know. Of my three sisters, two of them have very few teen problems. Neither of them started home schooling their kids until they were older.  One of them has a lot of problems but everyone around her can tell you why she is having problems also.

I will agree that my son has what we call "mental blips". There are times when you have to give him information 3 or four times before it registers. But that is not rebellion - that may be a brain thing and I should probably extend more grace than I do in those situations.  When I say, "Go to the store and get some milk, cheese, and stuff for a salad." Then he goes to the store and gets nothing and comes back because he forgot EVERYTHING - I will buy that we have to develop strategies for dealing with that and we have. But that is not the same as "Yeah right, go get it yourself." Which my friends have experienced and much, much worse. And while my son hasn't been spanked since he was 4, I assure you that if he did speak to me that way he would scraping his lips off the wall. 

[Korrale4kq]

The first career that I would have loved to have done was in arcaheology or history. If I were able to run with that at a young age,  I would have. I would have loved to have gotten a phd and done field work. However as I got older I wanted to focus on having a family. Not something I feel I could have done as an archaeologist. But hopefully at that point I would be able to find a research job close to home or a teaching job.
I probably would have even changed my focus and gone back to school to get a science degree to accompany archaeology. Maybe forensic anthropology.

[momtobaby]

I totally understand where you are coming from Korrale4kq. I am an Engineer and have given up my profession to concentrate on my family. I also did my research in Environmental Engineering and that was lot of fun. I think I have a flair in teaching little kids and so who knows....I might end up being an early education instructor later on. I have also done lecturing in Uni but nothing more satisfying than teaching little ones.

[momtobaby]

Sonya_post,

Its nice to see that you are doing so well with managing your teenager. I am just hoping that we will be able to do the same when our daughter gets to that stage. Its always easy to have a plan in place but who knows when she grows up we might have to change our strategies that we have thought for her. I am sure the 'mental blips' will get better soonie soon (though my mental blips ....even at this age is worse than his .. )

[sonya_post]

momtobeby,

Please don't get me wrong, I was a rebellious child. My siblings were rebellious. My cousins were rebellious. And our parents all raised us the same. My sisters and some of my cousins decided to raise our children differently than our parents raised us. Amazingly, we all have pretty good kids. Now, if you take a family of 6 kids and 1 turns out rotten, it's probably just the kid. But if you take a family of six and all six turn out poorly - well, it's probably the parents. If either of my sons end up as rotten eggs, I will assume the problem is mine and not theirs, unless we can find some organic underlying cause. From age 12-14 it was pretty touch and go. I wasn't sure how things were going to turn out - the problems we were having stemmed from decisions I made and things I'd done wrong. We had some fixing to do. Luckily, I'd put in a pretty good foundation and got him on my team early. He ended up being strong enough and our relationship was strong enough to weather the storms.

If you want to know how to raise good kids - just watch the families who've raised them and copy. It isn't that hard.  You know, if you are on this forum, and you are not a pushy obnoxious parent, you are taking an interest in your child - then she is probably going to be just fine.

As far as mental blips - forget about it. I'm hoping  on the other side of menopause there is a bright light. 

[Mandabplus3]

Remember the comment I made about my daughter with two careers already mapped out? Well she wants 10 kids! Her first career choice doesn't suit 10 kids so she thought through what she would enjoy doing with 10 kids and organized a phase 2 of her life! She is 6!!!!!!! knave just decided to reshuffle her after school activities more in line with her career choices. We need children's drawing class.   
Thankfully my son picked a nice easy one. He wants to be a builder. Let's face it becoming a builder as a teenager is pretty easy to do. No point in wasting years at university after school if you need a trade certificate. His plan is to build mummy a big house with a rainbow door. Then build some more houses and rent them to other people who need somewhere to live. He said I can have the money from the rent because he is never leaving me ever and won't need it all  He is 4! Sounds like a great plan to me! 
So what do I do with a nerdy, science kid who loves to read and has no idea what they want to be when they grow up? she is the one headed for university early. It scares me already and she is only just 9.

[nee1]

Remember the comment I made about my daughter with two careers already mapped out? Well she wants 10 kids! Her first career choice doesn't suit 10 kids so she thought through what she would enjoy doing with 10 kids and organized a phase 2 of her life! She is 6!!!!!!!

                          

[mypashmina]

I appreciate your perspective. I do spank when kids are little - I don't see that as a problem, but there are some who might. We stop spanking on the 5th birthday as the child is no longer a toddler and spankings are for toddlers who don't know any better. Our goal is to be spanking free by 5 and burn the spanking paddle (my oldest kept his). Other than a few minor bumps in the road we do not have the teen problem in our home that many of my friends experience. I would say that is true for most of the home schooled families I know. Of my three sisters, two of them have very few teen problems. Neither of them started home schooling their kids until they were older.  One of them has a lot of problems but everyone around her can tell you why she is having problems also.

I will agree that my son has what we call "mental blips". There are times when you have to give him information 3 or four times before it registers. But that is not rebellion - that may be a brain thing and I should probably extend more grace than I do in those situations.  When I say, "Go to the store and get some milk, cheese, and stuff for a salad." Then he goes to the store and gets nothing and comes back because he forgot EVERYTHING - I will buy that we have to develop strategies for dealing with that and we have. But that is not the same as "Yeah right, go get it yourself." Which my friends have experienced and much, much worse. And while my son hasn't been spanked since he was 4, I assure you that if he did speak to me that way he would scraping his lips off the wall. 

Your comment made me want to cry, and I really don't cry easily. I saw this and I couldn't not comment.  If you can spare 15 minutes please see if any of these are of interest to you http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=philosophical+parenting

[Tamsyn]

I just have this to say about spanking.  From a Christian perspective, the reference is often "Spare the rod and spoil the child".  The comeback to that is often that it wasn't meant to mean that you beat your child, but that you guide them as a shepherd guides his sheep with his staff.  I agree, that's what it means.  We aren't supposed to beat our kids up, and the scriptures don't justify it.  However, we do need to look at how the shepherd uses his staff.  Mostly he uses it to herd the animals.  He uses it to fend off enemies.  When a sheep gets stuck, the crook can be used to help lift the animal out of danger.  The shepherd loves his sheep and guides them with love.  But what happens when the sheep goes astray?  The shepherd might tap their feet or side with the staff to get them back in line.  He might even grapple their feet to keep them from running away or to catch them for medical needs.  This isn't abuse, this is loving guidance, and this kind of action is necessary to properly take care of sheep.

[nee1]

My reason for accelerating certain things is not to send them off to the job market either. Nor do I want them in early college. I think 16 is a fine age to start attending college. Partly because most home schooled kids are ready (not all) , but also because I am not a fan of youth culture. We encourage children to remain children entirely too long. Teenage rebellion is something that we have created not something that is necessary. I don't wish to abnormally prolong childhood as much as I don't wish to shorten it.

Why would I accelerate? Well we did with my 1st because he needed it. There was no way to go at the same pace as the rest of his peers - even those homeschooling. He would have lost his mind and gotten lazy. What acceleration provided him was a chance to develop skills and explore his interests. Because we'd finished HS Math and Science he was free one semester to take 4 art classes. He was bent on attending an art school and go into graphic design. After one semester he realized he didn't want to be stuck in an office working with people on projects. He likes art but doesn't want to have to make a living at it. That saved us a lot of time and money. It was because he was taking 4 classes at once that he realized he hated it. If he had been taking only one - he wouldn't have figured out he didn't want to do it all day until he was enrolled in Art School.

But the thing I've been really thinking about is the Imafidon children and the scholarships to attend good universities in GB and the US. If you accelerate and finish your core material by 11- 12 you have 4 -6 years to develop your interests or figure out what you are interested in doing. Do you like math? Now is the time to really indulge your passion. There are competitions, side tracks, all sorts of avenues you can take this all the while developing a reason for a college to give you a scholarship. The scholarship isn't going to a 12 year old with a 17 on the ACT. But if that child waited a few more years that child would have made it to MIT. And a little more maturity would have meant that the child could attend without parents.  Is your passion music? Conservatories are HARD to get into. What if you took that 4 - 6 years and spent it all on music? Your child is never going to have another time in his/her life to indulge their passions without having to worry about other duties and responsibilities. And it is this time that they can work hard so that the great schools are going to take them and offer them a free ride. We kind of did this but it wasn't planned. The result will be a whole lot different when we add parental planning to the mix.

Sonya,

I’ve been re-reading Charlotte Mason lately. I’ve completed volume 1 and I'm now midway through volume 6.  In volume 6, she makes a case against unit studies, dumbed down children books, and a lot of other things. I’ve thought about most of her points and I’m convinced about their validity.

She also made a case against early specialisation of knowledge for children, and advocated a liberal education for all children. A liberal education in the sense of laying before the child a generous curriculum, where the child is exposed to poetry, the best literature, history, science, scriptures, as well as the three R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic). I’m convinced by her points but wondered about the early specialisation thing. She said that providing a child with a broad (generous and liberal) education would make the child a better specialised person in future. See her comments on pages 53 – 54 and pages 123 – 127, Volume 6 here - http://www.amblesideonline.org/CMM/M6complete.html (modern English paraphrase). Then check her original words (still those pages) here - http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol6complete.html.   

But I also wondered: most children have dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. And most of those dreams do come true if nurtured by the parents. My question is: should parents not nurture their children’s dreams for fear that they would end up too specialised and without a liberal education?

I remember reading Ben Carson’s autobiography ('Gifted Hands') and his other books. Here is wiki link to Ben Carson - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson).   Ben wanted to be a medical doctor from a very young age and his mom encouraged that dream. Today, he’s one of the world's foremost neuro-surgeons, saving children’s lives with his gifted hands. I’ve also met lots of other people who were encouraged to pursue their childhood dreams and have ended up quite successful today.

Granted, while pursing the dream (a specialisation), the child should at the same time be exposed to the other liberal arts as propounded by Charlotte Mason, so that the child will not end up too specialised without a knowledge of other subjects. For example, I’ve mentioned the Ahmed brothers. Good as they are in maths, with Zoihaib acing A levels maths at age 8, they go to schools where they receive instruction in other subjects. Further, their father said the following in this interview –

``Currently Wajih is broadening his education to cover the three sciences, English and other softer subjects at GCSE and A' levels, thus setting further goals for Zohaib to match or beat.’’

Link to entire interview - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/testimonial-from-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents
From that interview, I see that the boys’ education would not be narrowed within the specialism of math, but that the parents were working hard to broaden their boys’ curriculum within the sciences and other subjects. And in the full documentary (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/4od), I found that the boys had done the exams in other subjects too, and they did well in those subjects. Hence their education could not be considered narrowed to only mathematics.

What are your thoughts on early specialization of knowledge? Do you think it is crippling? Brillkids parents, what do you think? Thanks for your responses.

[FomerlyMrsObedih_Now_BatmansMama]

Your comment made me want to cry, and I really don't cry easily. I saw this and I couldn't not comment.  If you can spare 15 minutes please see if any of these are of interest to you http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=philosophical+parenting

MyPashmina, if you're engaged with Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio you may wanna read this http://www.rickross.com/groups/freedomain.html (Rick Ross Institute is a website that collects information on cults and cult-like groups). Also see http://liberatingminds.forumotion.com/t2259-is-freedomain-radio-a-destructive-cult (an entire website set up for people who walked away from FDR).

Nee1, I personally wouldn't focus so much on one area that my child is excluded from exploring other options. I am a believer in the idea of multi-talented, multi-faceted, multi-purposed human beings. One person really can do it all - just not all at the same time. If my parents had groomed me into an artist/thespian I would (still could and dreaming of it!) most likely have been successful, but may have missed my calling in enterprise, in writing, in teaching, in parenting and building a home. OR I may NOT have missed anything at all IF they insisted I got a broad education, while developing my expertise. Yes that would mean more work, but that is the price of being a professional, and I am prepared to require it of my own kids. Some cultures (mine is one of them, I'm Nigerian) believe a child has completed education only when they have a masters degree, but will settle for an undergraduate degree and professional qualifications/development  at minimum (which is what I have!) I am friends with someone from a family of legendary musicians (his father is Fela Anikulapo Kuti), he is a very successful musician today, and he and his siblings were required to get degrees because they needed other options just in case. I take this approach, partly because it is culturally wired into me but also because I wanted to do many things when I was a child (still do), therefore a broad education with "a current area of expertise/focus" would have worked best for me. So it is what I am giving my children - options.

[mypashmina]

I thought those videos communicated the idea of not hitting your kids very persuasively. Quicker than reading books or the studies that are available.

I could also recommend "Why  Love Matters" by Sue Gehrhardt - http://www.amazon.com/Why-Love-Matters-Affection-Shapes/dp/1583918175 - worth reading the book reviews.

Glenn Doman's book and the subsequent amazing results with my boy inspired a ton respect for babies, and after that it would be impossible to hit them, with or without a paddle.

I was just surprised to see such a comment on this forum, where other parents have been through similar experiences with their kids.

[Ezhik]

Nee1 - I've been reading a lot about CM philosophy, too. I love that she advocates such depth in every subject. In regards to specialization, my understanding is that with CM the idea is to finish 'school' by lunchtime, giving the afternoon free. I understood that this is time that the child can use not only for play, but also to expand on their interests. So, if your child desperately wants to be a marine biologist, they can spend as much of the afternoon reading about sea creatures, or pretending to be a shark or watching documentaries as you allow them to (*some* time needs to be spent outdoors!) - so long as they focus and finish their general lessons in the morning.   

This is something that I really like about CM. I've always been of the opinion that I want my son to have a good grasp on all subjects and still have time to focus on things that he loves. Goodness knows if I'd only done school in the morning, I could have learnt so much more! ( I am the type of person that reads textbooks and learns languages for fun  )

[sonya_post]

Not commenting on the spanking part as Tamsym did a fine job already.   

Nee1,

I am going to paint with broad brush strokes here so please don't take any of this as a concrete statement. Charlotte would not approve of Early Learning. However, I suspect with some of the new science she might change her mind as she agrees that learning in the early years should be in the form of games and play. What most of us are doing is in the form of play and games - no pressure and hopefully with lots of cuddle time and laughter. Most of us are not doing EL at the expense of sending our children out to play in the dirt.

Someone pointed out that the school day is short in a consistently CM environment. That does leave the afternoons for the development of other interests. From experience - if you are homeschooling and develop the habit of attention early (preventing the dwaddles) - school isn't going to take all that long even with acceleration in certain subjects. Especially if you plan to go year round. You are going to have many unfilled hours in the day for specialization.

My 2 year old has developed an obsession with music and conducting. Right now he spends 3-5 hours a day practicing the violin, piano, listening to music, pretend conducting and studying and copying the movements of conductors we watch on YouTube. He sleeps about 13, so that leaves another 6-8 hours in his day. We spend another 1-2 hours, depending, on reading, math and Latin. Most days it is closer to 1 hour than it is to 2 hours.  We also read a lot - maybe one to two hours. That leaves 4-6 hours a day in play and free time to explore. Most children can finish their schooling in 3-5 hours. This includes HS, provided you get rid of all the busywork. If your child is sleeping 9 hours, does chores for an hour, and school for 5 and is outside/nature study for 3, and 2 is spent eating that leaves you with five hours left in the day. K-6 you will be spending about 4 on school most days. We have never spent an hour a day on chores - more like 20 minutes during the week and and hour or two on Saturday.

Early specialization can be a problem if you don't expose your children to other things. But if you round out their education with other subjects, I think that is fine. Part of the joy of starting so early is that your are getting so much of the difficult learning out of the way before your children even realize that there might be something to "fuss" about. There needn't be any tears over learning to read as there was never a time when they weren't reading. When your child is five they will think they were born reading. They won't remember learning. That saves several years which your child can then take that time and do other things - like what they are passionate about. Or reading more books. or jumping ahead in math, you get the point. I mentioned somewhere else that EL throws the whole timeline off. Partly because you are saving time upfront to be spent later but for those who are homeschooling, your child will have always spent a large part of the day learning. There will be little to fuss over - if it was done with happiness and good cheer all along. This will save hours and hours of wasted time later. Plus they learn faster. My toddler starting spewing out math facts this week and showed me that he knows quite well how to add and subtract numbers. All this time I thought it was going nowhere, he is filing it all away in his little brain to be pulled out later. We spend no more than 15 minutes a day directly on math. All this to say that I don't think this has to be an either/or but a both/and.

Charlotte used Da Vinci as a great illustration, however, there are very few Da Vincis in the world. The likelihood that I will have one by broadening my child's horizons in quite small. But, I can make sure my music obsessed child gets a full education in addition to being music obsessed. I think he will be a better musician if he gets a full classical education.

[nee1]

MrsObedih, Ezihk, and Sonya, I don't even know how to thank you all for your responses. Your responses have clarified a lot of things for me. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

Sonya,
I hope you know I'll ever be grateful to you for introducing me to Charlotte Mason on this thread: http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/homeschoolers-is-'the-well-trained-mind'-the-best-homeschool-curriculum/. I've been reading Charlotte Mason’s volumes in depth these past weeks, and I keep thinking ``What! This woman was pure genius.'' From my readings so far, her model of education in the grammar stages surpasses the Well Trained Mind by far, and the more I study Charlotte Mason’s original writings, the more I become dissatisfied with WTM.

a) For example, CM recommends using best literature (e.g., unabridged versions) of the best books; WTM is okay with using abridged children's versions in the grammar stage.

b) CM sees children as complete persons, capable of dealing with all forms of knowledge (as Glenn Doman does); WTM sees young children as memory machines for which parents have to ensure that they know, especially in the grammar stages.

c) CM believes children should be placed in touch with real knowledge from the start and be taught to narrate back after a single reading; WTM believes in gradation of knowledge, where you start small, and keep repetiting the same thing over and over.
 
d) CM uses narration, where the child expresses the knowledge in oral form using his OWN words; WTM uses comprehension questions, where you ask 'What did the lion do?'; `what happened to the bear?', etc.

e) CM is happy with memorisation, but says the memory work has to have the corresponding ideas attached; WTM is happy with parrot memorisation without understanding, especially in the grammar stages. According to the authors of WTM, if the child does not understand in the grammar stages, he will understand in the logic or rhetoric stages; just make him memorise during the grammar stage.

That said, WTM is a good book, and I've learnt some things from it. The book does get better in the logic and rhetoric stages. But how they perceive children in the grammar stage is very different from how Charlotte Mason perceived children.

It's unfortunate that CM has been thought to be a milder form of classical education, leaning more to unschooling. I think this is because of the way the interpreters of CM have presented the method. I've heard parents complain that Karen Andreaola's writings make people think CM is unschooling. As I have found, CM is not unschooling but a rigorous form of classical education. I found this interesting thread on the WTM forums: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/267301-cm-did-not-require-just-copywork/.

As a result of my recent readings of CM's works, I've raised the bar of education for my kid. Best of all, I'm enjoying the teaching and learning too. For example, for our read-aloud, I got Aesop's fables in unabridged form. It was very important for me that the book be unabridged, cos I had seen several dumbed down versions of Aesop's fables on Amazon. I also got the unabridged Grimm's Fairy Tales, and we've been reading from those. It's more interesting to read aloud from the unabridged versions, and for the first time, I felt I was recapturing my childhood. It makes teaching more fun when the teacher feels he/she is learning as well, but when you are constantly reading aloud from dumbed down children's books, teaching your kid tends to get boring.

I've also started history, and for that Charlotte Mason and Amblesideonline recommended Van Loon's Story of Mankind. I found a free copy on www.archive.org, and I've been reading aloud from that. It's an interesting history book, I enjoyed reading aloud from it to our son, and I even caught my husband listening in too to the read-aloud. Hubby and I then had a lively conversation on the book after the read-aloud. I'm not sure we would have had much to discuss if I had been reading aloud from one of the dumbed down children's books.

Sonya, you've done this before and have read widely about it, so you should know. Pray, is the gradation of knowledge as proposed by WTM actually what was done in classical education? I've read some articles online where people say it is something that was introduced by Dorothy Sayers, and that was not actually how classical education was implemented in the past. Your thoughts?

Further, for the depth question Tamsyn asked about, I strongly feel CM could provide such depth, especially in the grammar stages. Your thoughts on this?

And while you are at it, could you give me a recommendation for a living science text? Charlotte Mason mentioned 'The Sciences' by Edward Holden. I found a free copy online at www.archive.org,  but the book appears not to include biology, though it includes physics and chemistry. Are there any other living science books you could recommend, something that incorporates all the sciences? I don't want to spend money buying different books that discuss different things, say chipmunks, then birds, then ants. I need an all-in-one living science book. I already have Handbook of Nature Study (thank you Keri), which can be downloaded free from www.archive.org. And I’m planning to get one of the Kingfisher science encyclopaedias as reference texts. But right now, I’ve been searching high and low for a suitable living science book that is in narrative form, something a child can easily grasp, understand, and narrate from. Any recommendations? Thank you.

Looking forward to your responses, everyone. Thank you all.

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