Tuesday, October 29, 2013
in case you were wondering
Elazar hasn't been doing any chumash at all recently. He does enjoy listening to parsha.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
follow up about math
I wrote in the previous post about how Chana was technically "behind" in math for 4 years, since she got confused about fractions, and I tried a few times, and then essentially taught her no official math until this year (7th grade). I wrote that she didn't feel behind because she wasn't failing, she wasn't being confronted with math class after math class that she didn't understand because she hadn't mastered the previous skills, and instead of becoming more and more disheartened and convinced her math abilities were horrible, we just left it alone and picked it up this year, when I am delighted to report that she seems to have regained her math intuition and abilities.
I watched her do a division decimal problem (something like 4567.89/34.56) and I was thinking about how much multiplication and addition and subtraction has to be mastered to get to that point. Next week I'll give her the same types of problems with positive and negative integers and see if she can incorporate it all.
I had said she didn't feel behind. However, I would like to tell a story about what happened in sleepaway camp this summer. As you may or may not know, middle school girls are notorious for being vicious.
I'm sure most homeschooled kids (being out and about in the real world) have experienced being questioned by matriculated kids. Chana reports she gets a lot of "You're so lucky!"s and "How do you make friends?" (Rather a funny question to be asked in summer camp). This time, one of them asked her a math question. Chana did not know the answer.
"Are you planning to go to high school?"
Chana said yes.
"Do you know [gobbeltygobbeltygook-math]?"
"No.."
"Well, good luck in high school."
When Chana told me that, expressing glumly that she wasn't so good at math, I said, "Well, they've been sitting in math class for SEVEN years and you've been playing, and in one year you're going to learn everything and catch up."
She then told me the rest of the conversation:
Chana: "My sister went to high school."
"And she failed?"
"She got the math award."
Although I'm sorry that Chana had that somewhat uncomfortable experience, I stand by how we handled her math education. The benefits of having her not experience frustration and spiral further and further into negativity, and then the bonus positive of her actually being interested in math and re-discovering her math intuition and mathematical insight is one of great delights of homeschooling.
I watched her do a division decimal problem (something like 4567.89/34.56) and I was thinking about how much multiplication and addition and subtraction has to be mastered to get to that point. Next week I'll give her the same types of problems with positive and negative integers and see if she can incorporate it all.
I had said she didn't feel behind. However, I would like to tell a story about what happened in sleepaway camp this summer. As you may or may not know, middle school girls are notorious for being vicious.
I'm sure most homeschooled kids (being out and about in the real world) have experienced being questioned by matriculated kids. Chana reports she gets a lot of "You're so lucky!"s and "How do you make friends?" (Rather a funny question to be asked in summer camp). This time, one of them asked her a math question. Chana did not know the answer.
"Are you planning to go to high school?"
Chana said yes.
"Do you know [gobbeltygobbeltygook-math]?"
"No.."
"Well, good luck in high school."
When Chana told me that, expressing glumly that she wasn't so good at math, I said, "Well, they've been sitting in math class for SEVEN years and you've been playing, and in one year you're going to learn everything and catch up."
She then told me the rest of the conversation:
Chana: "My sister went to high school."
"And she failed?"
"She got the math award."
Although I'm sorry that Chana had that somewhat uncomfortable experience, I stand by how we handled her math education. The benefits of having her not experience frustration and spiral further and further into negativity, and then the bonus positive of her actually being interested in math and re-discovering her math intuition and mathematical insight is one of great delights of homeschooling.
math
I love homeschooling. Every year I love it more. I've mentioned before how incredible it is to tinker with curricula. You get to do whatever you want. If you don't like how schools do things, then try something else. If you or your kids don't like how things are going, then try something else.
Being an experienced homeschooler (I think this is our 15th year), I get to really up my game. I remember watching a video of this crazy father who drove around in a van with his family for years and never taught them any math whatsoever. I thought that was the nuttiest thing I ever heard of. But boy was it intriguing. All the things I thought education "needed" might not be true. All of my assumptions might be false. I might be locked into all sorts of premises that are preventing true learning.
I read Lockhart's Lament in 2008. I think it's been simmering in my brain for the last few years. He talks about presenting mathematics in a way that it engages the part of our minds that enjoys questions.
He talks about how music and art, although to be done professionally and "properly" need a lot of knowledge and skill, are played with by preschoolers and children. Why are we not playing with numbers and mathematical principles?
He says, "If I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child's natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn't possibly do as good a job as is currently being done--I simply wouldn't have the kind of imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education."
"They [the students] say, "math class is stupid and boring," and they are right."
" 'So you would remove mathematics from the school curriculum?' 'The mathematics has already been removed! The only question is what to do with the hollow, vapid shell that remains.'"
"To help your students memorize formulas.. you might invent this whole story about "Mr. C" who drives around "Mrs. A" and tells her how nice his "two pies are" (C=2πr).. or some such nonsense. But what about the real story? The one about mankind's struggle with the problem of measuring curves; about Eudoxus and Archimedes and the method of exhaustion; about the transcendence of pi? Which is more interesting--measuring the rough dimensions of a circular piece of graph paper,using a formula that someone handed you without explanation (and made you memorize and practice over and over) or hearing the story of one of the most beautiful, fascinating problems, and one of the most brilliant and powerful ideas in human history? We're killing people's interest in circles for god's sake!"
****
So since Chana is thinking about going to High School, we have been doing the sort of basic mathematics that is a prerequisite for algebra. Fractions, decimals, integers, etc. I wrote a list of all the things I could think of. And most nights, at around 9pm, we sit down and I try to think of what would be kind of fun, and we sit down and do it. I've been enjoying the opportunity to tinker with the mathematics curriculum and just try to get it to be interesting and fun.
Chana's been enjoying math again. When we talked about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing negative and positive integers, Chana framed it as negative is like owing someone money. So if you owe someone 5 dollars (-5) three times, then you are going to owe someone 15 dollars. In other words, it made sense to her that if you are multiplying a negative and a positive, that the answer will be negative. I'm so happy she's thinking about math again and integrating into her worldview in a real and experiential way.
On Friday, she asked me about 5.9 minutes. (We've been working on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimals all week.) So she was wondering about decimals in terms of minutes. It's a piece of a minute--but how much of a piece? How would you convert it? I'm so delighted that she's wondering that. We started talking about 0.5 being a half and what that means in terms of minutes. We were just casually chatting. What about 0.9? What about 0.05? or 0.50? She was thinking about it and trying to figure it out, and I was answering direct questions. Then she said, "Hey, maybe after Shabbos you can teach me that." So that's our next math topic.
As I mentioned about unschooling, math was one of the last subjects to be unschooled. It's been really freeing to let go of the way that mathematics is usually taught in schools and just give Chana some space and then the opportunity to play with math a little. I want her to be proficient in math. But I want her to realize that math is a way of thinking about life, and that math is an art, and that math has beauty, and that the mind naturally thinks mathematically. Homeschooling has not only given me the chance to pay close attention and teach on Chana's level when she was conceptually ready, and teach her in a way where she could understand it and not fall "behind" (though she technically was "behind" the school curriculum for 4 years, she didn't feel behind because she wasn't failing), it also provided the opportunity to really approach math in a completely different way.
Being an experienced homeschooler (I think this is our 15th year), I get to really up my game. I remember watching a video of this crazy father who drove around in a van with his family for years and never taught them any math whatsoever. I thought that was the nuttiest thing I ever heard of. But boy was it intriguing. All the things I thought education "needed" might not be true. All of my assumptions might be false. I might be locked into all sorts of premises that are preventing true learning.
I read Lockhart's Lament in 2008. I think it's been simmering in my brain for the last few years. He talks about presenting mathematics in a way that it engages the part of our minds that enjoys questions.
He talks about how music and art, although to be done professionally and "properly" need a lot of knowledge and skill, are played with by preschoolers and children. Why are we not playing with numbers and mathematical principles?
He says, "If I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child's natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn't possibly do as good a job as is currently being done--I simply wouldn't have the kind of imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education."
"They [the students] say, "math class is stupid and boring," and they are right."
" 'So you would remove mathematics from the school curriculum?' 'The mathematics has already been removed! The only question is what to do with the hollow, vapid shell that remains.'"
"To help your students memorize formulas.. you might invent this whole story about "Mr. C" who drives around "Mrs. A" and tells her how nice his "two pies are" (C=2πr).. or some such nonsense. But what about the real story? The one about mankind's struggle with the problem of measuring curves; about Eudoxus and Archimedes and the method of exhaustion; about the transcendence of pi? Which is more interesting--measuring the rough dimensions of a circular piece of graph paper,using a formula that someone handed you without explanation (and made you memorize and practice over and over) or hearing the story of one of the most beautiful, fascinating problems, and one of the most brilliant and powerful ideas in human history? We're killing people's interest in circles for god's sake!"
****
So since Chana is thinking about going to High School, we have been doing the sort of basic mathematics that is a prerequisite for algebra. Fractions, decimals, integers, etc. I wrote a list of all the things I could think of. And most nights, at around 9pm, we sit down and I try to think of what would be kind of fun, and we sit down and do it. I've been enjoying the opportunity to tinker with the mathematics curriculum and just try to get it to be interesting and fun.
Chana's been enjoying math again. When we talked about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing negative and positive integers, Chana framed it as negative is like owing someone money. So if you owe someone 5 dollars (-5) three times, then you are going to owe someone 15 dollars. In other words, it made sense to her that if you are multiplying a negative and a positive, that the answer will be negative. I'm so happy she's thinking about math again and integrating into her worldview in a real and experiential way.
On Friday, she asked me about 5.9 minutes. (We've been working on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimals all week.) So she was wondering about decimals in terms of minutes. It's a piece of a minute--but how much of a piece? How would you convert it? I'm so delighted that she's wondering that. We started talking about 0.5 being a half and what that means in terms of minutes. We were just casually chatting. What about 0.9? What about 0.05? or 0.50? She was thinking about it and trying to figure it out, and I was answering direct questions. Then she said, "Hey, maybe after Shabbos you can teach me that." So that's our next math topic.
As I mentioned about unschooling, math was one of the last subjects to be unschooled. It's been really freeing to let go of the way that mathematics is usually taught in schools and just give Chana some space and then the opportunity to play with math a little. I want her to be proficient in math. But I want her to realize that math is a way of thinking about life, and that math is an art, and that math has beauty, and that the mind naturally thinks mathematically. Homeschooling has not only given me the chance to pay close attention and teach on Chana's level when she was conceptually ready, and teach her in a way where she could understand it and not fall "behind" (though she technically was "behind" the school curriculum for 4 years, she didn't feel behind because she wasn't failing), it also provided the opportunity to really approach math in a completely different way.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
the small classroom advantage of homeschool
Elazar held himself together today until about 2pm, when he started shrieking every time he got upset. It hit the point where I removed him from the game he was playing with his friend and held him while he screamed. I used staylistening for about 20 minutes until he was capable of playing again without falling into shrieking at every little frustration. I cannot imagine a teacher being able to do that with all the other students.
vayakhel
Chana finished sheni of Vayakhel today. Some of the words she didn't remember, but they are pretty much the same words I don't remember, and I've done it more times than she has. Maybe one day I'll remember the planks and the curtains.
She asked if the lechem hapanim was the bread they ate once a week, and said, "Why is it called 'showbread'? Why not call it 'display-it-until-we-eat-it-bread?' "
We got into a small skirmish since I had her doing a few rashis (the one on kumaz surprised me). And she didn't want to, and she said she knew it, and I used playful parenting techniques and shrieked in a funny way that she needs to do rashi and she has to learn it and I'm in charge and I insist. I screamed louder than she did and I made sure to make it clear that I was being silly. It did break the ice and she did it.
She asked if the lechem hapanim was the bread they ate once a week, and said, "Why is it called 'showbread'? Why not call it 'display-it-until-we-eat-it-bread?' "
We got into a small skirmish since I had her doing a few rashis (the one on kumaz surprised me). And she didn't want to, and she said she knew it, and I used playful parenting techniques and shrieked in a funny way that she needs to do rashi and she has to learn it and I'm in charge and I insist. I screamed louder than she did and I made sure to make it clear that I was being silly. It did break the ice and she did it.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
unschooling aleph beis writing
Elazar (age 6) came over to me with a blank piece of paper and a pen and said he wanted to write. He asked for aleph beis, not the alphabet. He said he didn't want "lowercase" (that's what he calls script). I said in Hebrew we only write script, we don't write print in Hebrew. So he agreed.
What was new about this activity is that I didn't write a whole row of "follow the dotted line." Up until now, I gave him dotted lines for every letter. This time, I just wrote the first letter dotted. He chose to copy the rest freehand. He didn't have that capacity the last time he sat down to write.
He did really nicely except he got a little confused in the middle of the gimels. (And as he was writing them incorrectly, he was saying, "I'm sooooo good at these gimels!" But alas). I told him it's a line and a C, and he did the next one correctly.
He was tickled that a Vav is just a straight line.
What was new about this activity is that I didn't write a whole row of "follow the dotted line." Up until now, I gave him dotted lines for every letter. This time, I just wrote the first letter dotted. He chose to copy the rest freehand. He didn't have that capacity the last time he sat down to write.
He did really nicely except he got a little confused in the middle of the gimels. (And as he was writing them incorrectly, he was saying, "I'm sooooo good at these gimels!" But alas). I told him it's a line and a C, and he did the next one correctly.
He was tickled that a Vav is just a straight line.
singing vs not singing tefila
Chana reminisced yesterday about how when she was younger, she was so excited to graduate to each new paragraph of bentching. "Remember when we used to go to pizza every Thursday and I was so excited at each new paragraph of bentching? Like when I finished nodeh? And then I got to start the next one?" I didn't remember, but I was happy that she had such fond memories of us singing each part together until she learned it.
Then she tilted her head to the side and said, "I don't actually know any of it by heart."
She's very meticulous about saying bracha achrona and always uses a bentcher. I didn't learn al hamichya by heart until high school, when I decided to actually be careful about saying it and realized it was inconvenient to not know it by heart. But I always knew bentching by heart. And I always felt that singing was a painless way to help the child memorize it.
I spent hours singing davening with Sarah for years and years, and it didn't help her remember tefila. And Chana doesn't remember bentching either. And yet I only know what I know by heart from davening and bentching from singing. Am I doing it wrong? I don't think so. With Sarah, whom I wasn't unschooling, I definitely put in the same amount of time as yeshiva dayschools do. With Chana, the year before her bat mitzva, we made sure she could fluently read everything she would be chayav to say when she became bat mitzva.
It is odd that neither of them learned tefila and bentching by heart. On the up side, I see that both of them are medakdek about their chiyuvim. And it doesn't seem to affect their sincerity or their actions.
Then she tilted her head to the side and said, "I don't actually know any of it by heart."
She's very meticulous about saying bracha achrona and always uses a bentcher. I didn't learn al hamichya by heart until high school, when I decided to actually be careful about saying it and realized it was inconvenient to not know it by heart. But I always knew bentching by heart. And I always felt that singing was a painless way to help the child memorize it.
I spent hours singing davening with Sarah for years and years, and it didn't help her remember tefila. And Chana doesn't remember bentching either. And yet I only know what I know by heart from davening and bentching from singing. Am I doing it wrong? I don't think so. With Sarah, whom I wasn't unschooling, I definitely put in the same amount of time as yeshiva dayschools do. With Chana, the year before her bat mitzva, we made sure she could fluently read everything she would be chayav to say when she became bat mitzva.
It is odd that neither of them learned tefila and bentching by heart. On the up side, I see that both of them are medakdek about their chiyuvim. And it doesn't seem to affect their sincerity or their actions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
