Swann Family = 10 Children with MA at age 16! Book Review & Discussion Thread

[Jenene]

Nee1 quite honestly, I don't have an opinion on A2.  Supposedly it includes more than the Robinson curriculum.  Doesn't necessarily mean it is better though 

I wonder how much you actually need either of these nowadays.  Just take the ideas?? Find a good book list?? (The RC one is freely available)  lurk around some homeschooling forums and see what is regularly recommended for spelling, grammar etc. if you want to add those?  When RC was published there wasn't the accessibility to all these classics that we have now.  So much easier now that most of it is available free for kindle or similar.  Most of the CDs that make up the RC are simply the books to print.

[mario]

Please give us more information about what they said regarding part time enrolment. I think part time on site enrolment would be the ideal situation. If my kids could go to school 3 days a week and be home schooled for 3 I would be sooooooo happy! They would be soooo happy and all the work we want done would get done. Including the extra curricular stuff like music and languages.
After schooling takes a delicate balance of play and rest time, focused learning time, and extra curricular activities. To excell beyond school level your need kids who can buckle down for one to two hours a day.  Really it's one Saxon lesson a day and some reading time. I would ideally work them more until they can read anything put in front of them. Here we just switch the focus. The first 2 years are focused on reading until they are high school level readers then we switch to math focus for after schooling.
We use car travel time for extra learning like history, geography and science. My kids are in the car a minimum of 7 hours a week. The more car learning we can do the better 
I wonder what I have to do in Australia to get part time schooling approved? 

Dear Mandabplus3

Sorry but I’m not receiving e-mails from this topic. I guess your question was for me. About my inquiry on Laurel Springs, they said that enrolling a young kid full time in two schools would not be a good idea. They have part time beginning on 4th grade, and by part time it means taking up to three courses and the child won’t receive a diploma from them, since the main school is supposed to be another one. If a child is enrolled in four or more courses, it’s considered Full-Time. That is what they told me.

[Tamsyn]

This video goes right along with the "self education" mode of thought we've been having, as well as tapping into the "college vs other" discussion with Robert Levy.  This would be a great option for college-ready younger children who aren't old enough to leave as well.  If they can pass an exam, they could also take clep and AP tests while they are at it.  I really liked it!  Although I have to say that my music education couldn't be replicated at home.  It's hard to sing in an advanced choir on your own.  This kind of an education really has it's place though, and is a powerful option for EL kids down the road.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/piSLobJfZ3c&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/piSLobJfZ3c&rel=1</a>

[Mandabplus3]

Thanks Mario  
jenene of course you can just use the ideas here and not invest in any curriculum. Most classics are available free from protect Gutenberg. What you are paying for is the nicer formatting without typos or extra characters. You may also be paying for a nice and tidy order to read them in. Useful but not essential. There are some books you just won't find for free and they almost always happen to be the stories based around a non fiction event that you need to pay for. History apparently isn't free  
It's another one of those homeschool problems we always face. You either pay with your time ( finding, downloading, filing, printing and organising ) or with you money! So decide which one you have more of available
Worth mentioning also is that many of these classics books are available ridiculously cheap at 2nd hand book sales ready to read! So if you make up your own list, carry it around and see what you find. Electronic format books are great but I am a firm believer that kids need both. Also sometimes an ebook just isn't practical. I mean would you send an iPad on school camp? Or would you send a kindle to a kindergarten? What about going camping? Or during power outages....

[Mandabplus3]

Great lecture Tamsyn. I completely agree. I believe that is entirely possible. In fact I often self learn using textbooks because the books available for the general public casual reading are just too simplified to answer my real questions.
Pinching online lectures to create your own degree is wonderful. It won't however take away the need to go to uni. Kids will still need that piece of paper to get the job. This would be perfect to ensure your kids are informed enough o find their course easy when they do go. Or even for a second and third degree that you really don't need the piece of paper for.
Not a good solution as a substitute if you want to be a doctor!    but perfect for courses in business, education ( except if you want to be a teacher you will need the course) arts, computers, technology...
I can see our kids using this technique during high school to get a head start on a degree that they plan to enrol in later.

[Wolfwind]

That lecture makes me want to create a degree for myself.  Unfortunately, I don't think any college offers "Early Learning" as a major.  :-)  I think this forum, and all the books I read because of it, are about equivalent.

I do think it's a great idea.  If you have a motivated teenager and an agreeable college that transfers credits/tests out of classes without too muh trouble, between AP/CLEP and online learning, you might be able to get a degree with only paying tuition for a year or so.  Sounds great to me!

[cokers4life]

The TED talk was great.  Honestly, I have been trying to put together a computer science path for myself.  Honestly, I have seen so many young teens explore the world of computer science and programming with absolutely no help other than google.   I have every intention of making computer science as important as math and reading in the development of my children.  You can take this knowledge and apply it to any subject or degree of your choice.  It doesn't matter what you choose, everything is impacted and improved upon through computer programming. 

I seems to me there are certain degrees and subjects where special environments are necessary for understanding and obtaining special knowledge.   It also seems to me that certain degrees can be mastered independently like math, computer programming and even business.   Degrees that do offer special knowledge where a special and not easily accessible environment are vital to understanding and obtaining the special knowledge are  in the medical field, engineering, physics, psychology, music and etc.   This is where a university will play its role in the future.  I think concepts like philosophy will take a path of group learning in a forum environment rather than a university degree.

What is extraordinary is that there is a self-learning movement in the post college world that is circling the global thanks to the free resources flowing freely through the Internet.  I am very optimistic about the future and I think we will find people choosing and benefiting from alternative learning environments thanks to the overbearing cost of the university environment. 

[PokerDad]

Enjoyed the video. Interesting, but a few months ago I started watching poker videos at 1.3x whenever possible. I figured that I typically pause the tape when I'm copiously taking notes and rewind when I have to, but the rest of the time I'm moving through the content faster. I'd guess a lecture would be really simple to 1.5x (poker vids tend to pile a lot of action at once). I felt like what took me so long to figure that out when this guy is doing his whole coursework that way

It remains to be seen what will happen with the internet learning, but in today's environment with free course content and Khan, there's really no excuse to be ignorant at the age of 18.... IMHO

[Mandabplus3]

Hey can you watch fast speed on a tablet? I have never actually used the 1.5 x speed for anything but I am thinking it would be just perfect for me! I get bored watching most things as they go to slow for my brain. Speed would be awesome!
Early childhood education would be the closest degree to EL. It's a teaching degree. Some subjects would be useless ( politics!) but others could be added to counter them ( like Heath and well being or physical developmental milestones) all the early childhood math subjects would be great as well as any course showing teaching reading.

[Korrale4kq]

Haha. Funny about the faster speeds. I used to borrow The Teaching company lectures from the library and the content was great but they are excruciatingly slow. So I used to speed them up with the VCR.
I too would be interested in a way to speed up videos from places like YouTube on the ipad.

[nee1]

Thanks Tamsyn for the video. It answered my question of why self-educated children do so well in school. By removing the middleman (the teacher), they get in touch with the books themselves, and are far able to glean from them than students spoonfed with knowledge. Further, they are able to move at an accelerated pace because they are not limited by the availability and capacity of their teacher.  In the book ``The Self-Propelled Advantage’’, Joanne Calderwood says the same thing too. It was interesting, though, to watch a video confirming these insights.

For self-education, my target will be to have/ provide books that lend themselves to self-education because not all books do that (some books are very teacher-intensive). One would need books/resources that will explain the material as well as the teacher.

Thanks again for sharing the video.

[nee1]

Nee1 quite honestly, I don't have an opinion on A2.  Supposedly it includes more than the Robinson curriculum.  Doesn't necessarily mean it is better though 

I wonder how much you actually need either of these nowadays.  Just take the ideas?? Find a good book list?? (The RC one is freely available)  lurk around some homeschooling forums and see what is regularly recommended for spelling, grammar etc. if you want to add those?  When RC was published there wasn't the accessibility to all these classics that we have now.  So much easier now that most of it is available free for kindle or similar.  Most of the CDs that make up the RC are simply the books to print.

Jenene, thanks for your response.

[PokerDad]

I don't have a tablet, so I'm unfamiliar with what it can and can't do. To view something (or listen to something) at a faster speed, you need a player that can do it. Streaming isn't likely to have this function, so you have to download or somehow have the file in hand. I've been using VLC ever since another poker player told me about it quite some time ago.

For youtube videos, you could use a capture website to download the file, or pull it from your cache (but I can't always do this because I'm not all that great at computers ha ha) and then watch it at your own speed. I would guess that you could do this on a tablet.

[nee1]

Here is the link to the MIT online courses website - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/index.htm. 

And I found two BBC articles on MIT online courses: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17012968 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19505776.

And if anyone has more details about these courses, please share. This all sounds very interesting. Thank you everyone.

[Mandabplus3]

Thanks Pokerdad. I will research this speed thing. I could really use this but I don't enjoy siting in front of the laptop nearly as much as the iPad. Oh and as the the computer problem, never mind. Pokercub will be fluent in computers within a few months, they learn so fast    he can teach you all you need to know! 
Nee thanks for the links. I have a day off to search them tomorrow! Very interested in this whole idea. Intriguing 

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