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tovlo4801
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| Posted: May 18 2005 at 12:06pm | IP Logged
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Some of the recent posts regarding different education styles and my own re-thinking of how I want to educate my children has made me think about this question.
I certainly want my children to achieve excellence in their education. But I've been questioning recently what that means. Is there actually an objective standard of what excellence in education is? Does it mean the quality and quantity of knowledge that is gained?
Can you actually "give" your child an excellent education or does your child actually have to "achieve" an excellent education? In other words is an excellent education something that can be imposed on a child externally or is it something that the child has to embrace? If you place on a plate in front of your child a wonderful curriculuum, that if embraced fully would give a child great knowledge and thinking ability, is that same knowledge and thinking ability imparted if the child himself does not actually embrace what is set before him and just goes through the motions? I guess what I'm getting at is, all the educational programs out there ensure that if we follow this path our child will be well-educated. Can we truly produce a well-educated child just by choosing the "right" program and demanding that our child jump through the required hoops? Or might we be better off if our children have ownership of what they learn - even if it means not getting the objectively better education.
In my case, I actually do believe that what classical education provides (at least best I can figure out) is probably a superior education. I think if a child were to embrace what a classical education expects and master it, they would be better educated than a child who embraced a different track of education. Just to be clear this is my personal opinion and I don't mean to definitively state classical education is best. My trouble comes with the fact that my own child is just not embracing it. He doesn't love it. I wonder what he's actually getting out of it. So I look to unschooling. I see that what he will learn will be much more scattered and quite possibly will not include ALL the richness of a classical education. But I can also see that he will take ownership of what interests him and really master it because it matters to him. My suspicion is that my particular child will ultimately be better educated with a more free approach to the specific subject matter covered because he is unlikely to really take ownership of the material of a laid-out classical education. Now if he were more likely to really love and take ownership of more classical material, ultimately I personally think that would be a better education - just not the reality of his situation. Is it better to make sure he is exposed to all the richness of a classical education even if it's not really his or is it better to accept a potentially lesser level of material and yet have him truly love it and embrace it?
On the flip side - the praises of the brilliance of children who have been unschooled. I read the article Willa mentioned somewhere on this forum about the kids accepted into a particular college and their level of brilliance. The implication was that it was the result of their unschooling. I'm not sure I'm buying this. It sounded like these kids showed signs of brilliance from the beginning. My suspicion is that they would have been perceived as brilliant no matter what sort of education they were given. So I'm not buying that if I unschool my children they will necessarily be brilliant. I don't want to limit their potential, but the truth is I don't really expect to have children who are so brilliant top schools are courting them. I think that sometimes homeschool parents can buy into the idea that homeschooling or some particular style of education will always produce brilliant children. I don't want to be disappointed if my children are average. I don't want to limit them to averageness, but I don't believe everyone on this earth is gifted with intellectual brilliance. And I don't believe that a certain educational method will take a child who is not gifted with intellectual brilliance and make them into one who is. So is it acceptable for a parent to be OK with a child who is not an intellectual superstar. Is it neglect to accept less than extraordinary performance? If our children are not performing to the standards of the most rigorous education are we failing them? Or are we just realistically recognizing that just like everywhere else the homeschooling community will be home to children with varying intellectual potential?
I'm just thinking out loud and looking for a chorus of thoughts to mull over. Pick anything my post brings up for you and share it please. I really need some outside my head thoughts to roll around with what's already spinning in there. Thanks for any input you guys can give me on these thoughts.
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cvbmom
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| Posted: May 18 2005 at 1:42pm | IP Logged
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Richelle,
I've been toying with the same type of questions. I've read books on classical education, Charlotte Mason education, school-at-home education, unschooling, to name a few. I find merit in so many of these. I started out bound and determined to give my children a classical education, but alas, it was not their learning style and none of us were happy and enjoying learning together as I'd hoped. I've been re-evaluating and becoming more relaxed. We'll see where this goes. I look forward to hearing what others have to say on this one.
God bless,
Christine
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Mary G
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| Posted: May 18 2005 at 2:15pm | IP Logged
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I'd like to broaden this topic a bit if I may. Some of my kids go to "traditional school", some are homeschooled. My 16 yos is in a private, Catholic school. It's a very good school with high standards. We ask that he maintain a B- average (which is much below his abilities).
Well, he always sinks to the lowest grades possible, just scraping through by upping this one, losing a bit of ground in that one till he's got better than an overall 85% (which is B- at this school).
I mention all of this because sometimes I wonder -- what's the point? Is he at the school to learn or get high grades and pass tests? What is he learning? Is it part of the overall equation that he learn to socialize and conduct himself in different situations, isn't this part of well-rounded living education too?
==================
As Richelle said:
Can you actually "give" your child an excellent education or does your child actually have to "achieve" an excellent education? In other words is an excellent education something that can be imposed on a child externally or is it something that the child has to embrace?
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One of the things I keep saying to him, when he decides not to study for a test or just barely passes is, "I can lead you to the water, give you a big glass, but if you're not gonna drink, that's your choice."
So, whether or not this child is homeschooled, the question still remains: what is excellence in education? And doesn't the student have to embrace it all in their own way or do we "force" them to?
How do we measure excellence or successful education -- for the betterment of our children and our own piece of mind?
Any answers out there?
Blessings,
__________________
MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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julia s.
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 6:09pm | IP Logged
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Richelle,
Well put. My son never seems to achieve the best when it is laid in front of him no matter if the choice of activities was his or mine. He doesn't even seem aware of what that would be like to do the best. Yes he does his best in his mind -- but his standard is really low. Right now I'm really frustrated with him and myself. I'm not enjoying homeschooling because I put in so much effort and he just slides by each day and I wonder why -- . I know I should not do this, but I ran into a boy at the library who is two years younger than him and was obviously more aware and academically alert than my son has ever been. And inside I cringed. I just would like to see something in him --. You can't make then brilliant. Then I think I'll turn Nazi homeschool mom and make him do a billion things for his own good and take him kicking and screaming if I have to. But then I hear all this unschooling talk about letting them own the material, etc..., etc... and I think 'no bad mommy.' For the people who are 80% sure of where they stand in this mess I think great -- but I'm not sure of anything. I'm tired of having to always make the decisions for this and feeling I'm not right in anything. I've prayed for clarity, strength, and help for my son, but obviously the lesson isn't for me to have any of that, but something else. Maybe it's contentment. Maybe I'm supposed to settle for who my son is and just grind my teeth when he's so not who I expected. That's not right to say, I know. But my expectations are always coming up hard against my idealism. Just to clarify I didn't expect my son to be perfect or brilliant, but just not so odd. He's got all these idiosynchrysies (can't spell) and I'm just worn out from the plate spinning that goes with his specialness.
Homeschooling is just not that light at the end of the tunnle. HSing is the tunnle and the light is elusive to me right now.
I'm sorry I got way off track, but the good thing is I've managed to have the good cry I've been wanting to have for about a week now. That may sound weird, but it did feel good to release some of this. Thanks for listening.
__________________
julia
married to love of her life
with ds12 ds8 ds3 and ds1
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Willa
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 6:48pm | IP Logged
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tovlo4801 wrote:
| Is there actually an objective standard of what excellence in education is? Does it mean the quality and quantity of knowledge that is gained? Can you actually "give" your child an excellent education or does your child actually have to "achieve" an excellent education? . |
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I have been wondering about that "objective standard" thing myself while pondering on classical education, unschooling and CM.
The last question is the easiest for me. There seems to be a consensus throughout everything I've read. The child has to do it himself. You can provide environment, encouragement etc, but as with every virtue -- and studiousness is a virtue -- the child has to consent with his will. One kid in my family has apparently made a decision to make the most of every opportunity. He turns even disadvantages to advantages by his diligence. Another kid is presently a mystery to me -- I don't know how to make him do what he's capable of, whether to back off or push, or if I am contributing to his problem. I do know it would be worse for this particular kid if he went to school.
That's why CM put so much emphasis on the will, I believe. My dad, a natural-born scholar, said to my oldest "your education is what you make of it"(IT meaning your educational opportunities). He used to tell me that too, and I never really took it seriously, but I see he was right.
About the quantity and quality of knowledge gained, that's a different issue to me, a bit vaguer. What IS knowledge? Charlotte Mason says it's building relationships with God, the universe, other people living and dead, and their thoughts and deeds. That's not always what people think of nowadays when they say "knowledge". Sometimes they mean "training" or skill in something of use; other people mean facts or "content". Anyway, it's probably safe to say that no one human being can master the sum total of everything to be known in the world and so we have to pick and choose, prioritize, think of "knowledge" in a formative way rather than an all-incorporating way.
About the objective standard of excellence, that's exactly what I'm puzzled about too. Tracy Lee Simmons says that up till about the last century, classic languages and mathematics were considered the prerequisite standard for any kind of higher, more specialized education and the measuring bar for intellectual excellence. That has obviously changed in these days. Math is still considered important, but the ready availability of fine translations of ancient literature, plus the toil needed to acquire mastery of those languages (time that could be spent in some other area) makes us question exactly WHY or IF those things are necessary in these days. Well, obviously the national education system has decided they are NOT necessary, and most of us are products of that system or of a close equivalent (since even Catholic schools are largely following the public school model). So it's difficult to even consider what tradition said when we are so much past those days.
As homeschoolers, we get to decide for ourselves, and in some ways we are in an enviable position. I think that pretty much ANY style of homeschooling is as likely to lead to as good as or a better outcome than the schools. That gives us a lot of freedom, but it also gives us some choices to make. I've certainly bounced between different choices at different times in my lives and one thing I can say for sure --- my kids continued to learn ALL the time, no matter HOW we were doing it. But I expect that the learning is more haphazard and exploratory than it was in the old days. This may be "progress", steering closer to God's view of individual potential and uniqueness, or it could be a sign of our modern incoherence and confusion about everything of importance. I just don't know, but I often wonder. At any rate, I KNOW we are in a transition era.
My personal view in all this is that:
1. Education needs to be based on first principles... ie it needs to acknowledge the child as child of God, made in His image, born in a unique family for the particular good of that family and that child; the parents have to be acknowledged and honored as the primary educators. Any educational method not based on those premises is immediately suspect to both DH and me.
2. Education in the preparatory years, before college and even up through undergraduate years, is primarily a matter of planting seeds and forming the human being AS human being. In the medieval days, from something I read, a bachelor's degree meant that the student was now prepared to learn. The rest of his life was the actual learning and refining of learning  .
Even though my formal education was secular and not academically impressive, I do think it was all targeted towards preparation and that I've learned FAR FAR more in the years since than I did during the school years.
3. I believe that a lot of the "seeds" planted that I mentioned in #2 are the ones that Charlotte Mason wrote about -- which is why I like CM . The habit of attentiveness, the habit of obedience, the habit of forming relationships with knowledge. Other seeds are mentioned in my Ignatian education manual: an ability to "think, speak, and act well", the ability to be a Christian influence on one's adult sphere of life and work, the love for "things of the mind" and higher things.
Obviously I'm talking ideally here. I like ideals because they give me a reference point, something to aim for. All my kids have intellectual and character weaknesses and so do I, in spades. That's another reason I'm talking about "seeds" because sometimes the seeds planted and carefully tended never seem to sprout in our children. But I don't think it's useless to plant them. I get discouraged regularly by my flaws and those of my children (I'm a bit discouraged right now about a particular child, so I could relate to your post, Julia  ) but since I have older children I HAVE seen little seeds I planted, that stayed dormant for years and years, suddenly flourish and put forth a beautiful bloom.
Just a small example, since I've been writing in such generalities.... I read a story about Thomas a Becket, the saint and martyr, to two of my kids years ago. One hardly seemed to be listening, yet has talked again and again several years later about what a turning point it was in her life and thinking.
I'm not proofreading before I send so I hope this isn't full of typos... if so please excuse them! 
__________________
AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 7:56pm | IP Logged
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Julia,
My heart just aches reading what you've written. I can almost physically feel your frustration. Obviously I don't have the answers or I wouldn't be asking these questions myself. I'll share what I can and we'll see if it helps.
julia s. wrote:
| I've prayed for clarity, strength, and help for my son, but obviously the lesson isn't for me to have any of that, but something else. |
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Keep in mind that sometimes it's only through intense struggle that we come to true understanding. I've learned that lesson over and over again. Most of the really beautiful, deep understandings that I have of how to live in this life and how to understand the life to come have happened only after periods of intense questioning and pain. It is truly so painful not to have the answers. But God does seem to have a way of leading us eventually to the answers we need. Typically not as soon as we'd like, but they come. Perhaps a path to God's answer for you is just a couple posts here away? I don't know. God has used many different ways to ease my struggles in the past. It might be a homily that just hits me the right way, or a book I stumble across or something a person says to me in casual conversation. Often it's some combination of all these things that hit me just becuase of the repeated nature of the message. I hope my own questioning is a vehicle for God to bring you one step closer to understanding how to approach educating your children with love.
julia s. wrote:
| My son never seems to achieve the best when it is laid in front of him no matter if the choice of activities was his or mine. He doesn't even seem aware of what that would be like to do the best. Yes he does his best in his mind -- but his standard is really low. |
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This is I guess what I'm questioning. Who decides what the objective standards are? Maybe he is doing his best with what he has at the moment. Certainly he'll be capable of more as he matures, but I wonder if we expect too much from our children because some abitrary standard(or comparison with the neighbor child  ) has told us they should be doing better.
I've been thinking the past few days (OK weeks...) about whether it's reasonable to trust that a child will learn what they need when they need it. As I thought about it, I thought about how there have been three big times in my own life when I accomplished something really difficult for me. It wasn't easy and it took very hard work and determination each time. When I first contemplated these successes in my life I concluded that I never would have accomplished these things if I had an unschooling mentality for myself. As I continued to think about how each of these things came about though, I realized that no one told me to do any of these three things. They were all things that I wanted to do for one reason or another. They were all things I was not naturally suited to and had to work very hard to overcome shortcomings in. In all three cases I not only accomplished what I set out to do, but excelled beyond what others far more accomplished than me were able to do. I just evaluated my weakness, did what was needed to succeed and excelled. No one raised me in an unschooling way. I think it is a natural thing for people to work hard at things they care about and want to do well in. I'm coming to believe deeply that when a child cares about accomplishing something and needs certain skills to do it, they will be very capable of gaining the skills necessary to accomplish their goal. I think maybe we all have an understanding of the things we are capable of even if we're not consciously aware of it or if we need a little outside encouragement to accomplish them.
The reason I'm telling this story is that I'm hoping it offers you a little bit of peace that you don't need to worry quite so much about where your child is compared to some standard or some other child. He has his own gifts and weaknesses and so does the other child that you compared him to. Where some other child is brilliant may not be the same area where your child is brilliant. I'm just not sure it's a realistic goal to try to make our children excel in every possible area. I struggle so hard with wanting to give my child every advantage I can in this life so he never has to be embarrassed or struggle, but the truth is that the struggle is necessary. It's when we struggle with something we care about that we truly learn.
About the spelling. I have a confession - in case everyone on this forum hasn't already noticed I'm not the best speller. I'm 35 years old and I probably send out e-mails and letters with misspellings all the time (let's just not get into my grammar, OK ). Writing on these forums has made me more aware of wanting to become better at spelling. I usually have the Webster on-line dictionary up so that when I'm uncertain about a word I can easily look it up. I still probably miss more misspellings than I catch, but I'm in the process of becoming more aware of spelling. My spelling inability has not significantly inhibited my ability to function in life. Now that I have a reason to work on it I am. It's something that I care about presently and I'll probably get better and better at it as time goes on. Your child will probably get better and better at spelling when he has a reason to do so. I think the best we can do is continue to give our children tools to succeed academically through whatever method seems best. Then trust that even if they don't seem to be picking up the tools now there will come a time when they will see a need and pick them up.
Thank you for sharing your frustrations. I certainly share them and am working through them myself. Thinking through writing back to you has clarified and solidified some of my own thoughts. I hope something here helps even a little.
p.s. Anyone want to tell me how many misspellings I have here? I bet I still missed more than I looked up. 
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Leonie
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 8:23pm | IP Logged
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Last year I read a really interesting book about engaging students, about excellence in content and passion. It is written for school teachers but I found it helpful as a homeschooler.
The title? "The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide" by Robert Fried.
Some quotes related to excellence - "The goal of passionate teaching is, after all, engaged, productive, high-quality student learning.....Excellence may be found in the results students attain by doing work that:
*is intrinsically important..
*involves both discipline and a stretching of students' minds and actions...
*shows creativity and individuality..
*makes a contribution to learning or well-being of oneself and other...
Every student, of every ability level, has the potential to do excellent work under these criteria; ... A teacher's focus on excellence should not mean requiring a steady, unbroken, high level of performance from students. The best baseball players in the world fail to hit safely seven times in ten. We're after excellence, not perfect completion of... (all)tasks, and we should not create unrealisitic obstacles for a large number of potentially excellent students by confusing the two.
...As Howard Gardner points out in Frames of Mind, we should work with children and young people to discover the variety of ways that each can strive for - and achieve - excellence, in projects and tasks that take their unique pathways to excellence into account and offer them multiple ways for displaying their skills.
..So, what is it to be: a rich, traditonal focus on content, or a commitment to indepth student engagement in critical issues? ...For the passionate teacher, it's got to be both - students will experience a rich, content-filled curriculum; the students will discover for themselves the excitement of in-depth study. But to want both requires sacrifice and change.
.....Joining with students in aiming for high standards in learning and personal responsibilty, while making room for a lot of fun in the process, is as important to a teacher's stance as anything else we might think of."
Fried goes on to describe practical ways for teachers and parents to engage students in passionate learning and in aiming for excellence - built around parental and student involvement, especially in the decision making process ( or, in schools, via negotiation with teachers).
Sorry for the lengthy quotes - it is just such an interesting book! 
Leonie in Sydney
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 8:34pm | IP Logged
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WJFR wrote:
| There seems to be a consensus throughout everything I've read. The child has to do it himself. You can provide environment, encouragement etc, but as with every virtue -- and studiousness is a virtue -- the child has to consent with his will. |
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I love consensus. I tend to be insecure so a whole chorus of people saying, "you're right!" is just what I need! If I can be at peace with this piece of information then a whole lot of other things fall into place for me.
As far as what knowledge is and what the objective standard of excellence in education is, I'm certainly not as comfortable with my feelings on this. I'm beginning to feel strongly that there isn't some objective standard or set base of knowledge that everyone should strive to achieve for an excellent education. Your personal experience of your children thriving no matter what style of education you pursued seems to support this. I'm becoming disillusioned with the idea that we should all be striving to find one certain path that will definitively lead us to the goal of "educated child". I'm beginning to suspect that this path doesn't exist. I rebel at the idea that the answer is so subjective though, and so I think I must be wrong. There is objective Truth after all. There must be some sort of Truth in education. But what I'm starting to suspect is that the Truth is not about the particular method you educate your child by or the set body of knowledge you impart to your child, but something different. I can't put my finger on it, but maybe it has to do with the relationships CM talks about. I'm just not sure. I haven't read any CM writings. I don't know why, but I've just not been attracted to her writings. I'm more attracted to the Catholic women here who practice a form of it, I guess. Maybe someone could direct me to some particular CM writings that might give me some insight with these questions.
I really appreciate your post. It definately gives me another voice in that chorus I depend on so much, saying that perhaps a certain method and a particular knowledge base are not so important after all. Definitely a lot more thinking for me to do here. Please share if you puzzle your way to an answer to your own questions, OK?
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 8:39pm | IP Logged
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Leonie wrote:
Sorry for the lengthy quotes - it is just such an interesting book!
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Please don't be sorry! I love this information. It sounds wonderful. You've given me a lot to research and think about.
I sat down to look at e-mails about 6:00 and I haven't left my seat yet. I think I've well exceeded my families patience for this! But everytime I post I see another thought provoking post. My kids are already 1/2 hr past bedtime and I haven't eaten supper yet. I'm going to have to post this and then just walk away. You guys are such thoughtful wise women and I'm so grateful to have all of you to bounce my struggles off of. Thank all of you so much for weighing in!
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Willa
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| Posted: May 19 2005 at 9:04pm | IP Logged
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Leonie wrote:
| The best baseball players in the world fail to hit safely seven times in ten. We're after excellence, not perfect completion of... (all)tasks, and we should not create unrealisitic obstacles for a large number of potentially excellent students by confusing the two. |
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I notice this with my son's baseball. He is 12 so obviously it's not a super-intense situation yet, at least not around here. The coaches have high standards and work hard with the kids to improve their skills, but they also really recognize the kids' triumphs and are sympathetic and encouraging when they strike out or miss a ground ball. They make the assumption that the kid doesn't WANT to fail and of course, it's generally true. Kids don't want to fail.
I think that kids need a LOT of encouragement and sympathy for their "misses" and I forget to do this often enough so that I'm posting this hoping to reinforce it in myself! But coaching in this way requires attention to the kids' strengths and weaknesses and an essential positivity that's sometimes hard to achieve when we're parents, just because we care so much. We worry about their flaws and take for granted their strengths and good acts and habits. Speaking purely for myself here  I have to sometimes make a list of all the good things I know about a kid who's making me cry, just to get that positive view. In fact, I think I'll go do that this evening!
Also, the kids on the baseball team are usually basically cooperative -- they WANT to be there and sometimes, even though I'm not an unschooler, when my kid OBVIOUSLY isn't on the same page as me with academic goals, I let it drop or find some other way to approach it. Sometimes I ask the kid what HE thinks is the solution to the problem.
The little league baseball players vary in level of excellence but all have their strengths and their really "personal best" moments and those are to be celebrated as the victories they are.
__________________
AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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julia s.
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Thanks for your warm replies. Richelle, you gave me a lot to ponder and I'm printing out what you wrote to think over it some more. I think yesterday was just a build up of a lot of things. My son is actually very insightful and one of the sweetest people I know and I am very lucky to know him at such a personal level. I don't even think it's him I'm upset with so much as myself. I feel like I've been wrestling with these same questions now for a few years and I'm still only slightly further in figuring out the answers.
I agree with Willa that kids really do want to succeed (human nature?). But I'm not sure we have to wait for them to get interested in a topic before we have them trying hard to want to do it. I think interest can be inspired from our own or others enthusiasm. Or from some other way. For example when I was learning to dance ballet (many years ago) I would do the very basic and boring barre exercises because I'd seen how eventually all those steps and strengthening exercises would result in being able to do the wonderful dances. I think competition can come into it too. Not always a bad thing. I wanted to be good at math because it was considered a "hard" subject and I wanted to be better at it then most people. However, my enthusiasm for Chemistry just couldn't overcome my lack of comprehension in the subject no matter how hard I tried. I even had several people try to help me and it just never clicked. There have been several subjects that I thought were going to be just boring (like philosophy and psychology) that I loved, but persued initially because I had to, and eventually because I wanted to. In fact the teacher who opened my eyes the most had one of the most dry teaching techniques, but she never talked down to us and it was a challenge to meet her intellectually.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I think initial enthusiasm from the child is not a barometer which is reliable. And waiting for a child to show interest might mean a loss of the oportunity at all. Also, somethings are just a means to an end (for exaple grammar) and may never engender great enthusiasm, but sort of a resigned resoluteness. The end product (i.e. a well written paper) might be it's only goal.
Enthusiasm doesn't seem to be a reliable ingredient in excellence. It may come in at some part, but if your looking to recognize excellence in educating your child you might not be able to go by this as a factor.
So what are other factors that might represent excellence?
__________________
julia
married to love of her life
with ds12 ds8 ds3 and ds1
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: May 20 2005 at 11:05am | IP Logged
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julia s. wrote:
| But I'm not sure we have to wait for them to get interested in a topic before we have them trying hard to want to do it. I think interest can be inspired from our own or others enthusiasm. Or from some other way. For example when I was learning to dance ballet (many years ago) I would do the very basic and boring barre exercises because I'd seen how eventually all those steps and strengthening exercises would result in being able to do the wonderful dances. I think competition can come into it too. |
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ABSOLUTELY!
I'm completely on board with you here. I hope that my post didn't leave the impression that I thought something different than this.
I think asking a child to go through the motions of some exercise is one way of influencing desire. Sometimes a child needs to experience something he's unfamiliar with to discover an interest. But up until now this has been my primary mode of influence. I've just been gritting my teeth and demanding he do things because it's good for him. I'm really coming to see that there are so many more options for providing that influence.
julia s. wrote:
| I guess what I'm trying to say is I think initial enthusiasm from the child is not a barometer which is reliable. And waiting for a child to show interest might mean a loss of the oportunity at all. Also, somethings are just a means to an end (for exaple grammar) and may never engender great enthusiasm, but sort of a resigned resoluteness. The end product (i.e. a well written paper) might be it's only goal. |
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I guess in part this is what I'm beginning to question. Is there truly some magical window that certain learning can only occur in? Can you truly lose the opportunity to teach something altogether if you don't teach it at some magical point? This is the idea I'm becoming disillusioned with. Once they become passionate about producing a well written paper, then can't we take that passion and show them how the grammar will help them reach their goal of the well written paper? I think we can certainly put things in place to encourage them to WANT to write a well written paper. However I think until they are willing to take up the tools of grammar/spelling/vocabulary and use them, we are limited in what we can do. In your dance you had a passion to create the beautiful dance at the end. I'm not sure what inspired you, but I'm sure others influenced that desire. However ultimately it was your desire. Once you had that desire you needed to discipline yourself to perform the necessary exercises.
julia s. wrote:
| Enthusiasm doesn't seem to be a reliable ingredient in excellence. It may come in at some part, but if your looking to recognize excellence in educating your child you might not be able to go by this as a factor. |
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What I picture as an excellently educated person is someone who is full of passion for the world around them. It is someone who is filled with understanding of this world and who questions and digs deeper every day to gain more understanding. I guess in my picture enthusiasm is a key factor. It helps us discern where our gifts are and it motivates us to strive toward difficult goals.
In my picture I see some base of understanding that a well-educated person moves into adulthood with, but I'm thinking it is much more flexible and variable from person to person than I have previously thought.
It occurs to me that the picture I have of an excellent education might be different from what others picture. So is there truly ONE standard for an excellently educated person? I still deep down think there must be. But I just don't know what it is.
I keep thinking about Solomon. But I'm just not quite sure where to go with that thought. Solomon was given extraordinary wisdom. Not everyone will be given that same kind of gift. Can everyone be given some standard "excellent education"? Or is what is an excellent education variable from person to person depending upon their gifts? Does the standard of an excellent education have more to do with how well we've used the gifts we've been given than with some uniform path?
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julia s.
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My husband is really intelligent. Annoyingly so if your married to him and ever want to win an argument . He is very passionate about his work and is one of the top people in the country who do what he does. He has an opportunity to go back to college and get his doctorate (completely paid for), but he doesn't want to do it. He thought college boring (his notebooks had maybe five total pages of notes for all four years of his time there) and long and tedious. He is well informed from the news and his own personal reading. All in all sounds like a well-educated person, just without the paper credentials to prove it. But his education was sufficient -- not excellent.
My husband was never required to delve into the mysteries of the human heart or understand the philosophical points of views of people over time. My husband doesn't always express himself eloquently (in fact expression is one of his low points, something he works at all the time). He also doesn't have the ability to think overly abstractly. His knowledge is very concrete. (I'm the abstract thinker in the family and have trouble thinking concretely.) He gets much more work done in his solid concrete way than most do (than I do). But he does as much as a person could be expected to do, and often rises above what others expected of him.
So I'm not sure if he went after trying to get his very organized, detail-oriented mind to expand into the theoretical and self-expression if it would really add so much to his life (or the lives of those around him).
Much of what he brings to the table is organic intelligence that is in his genes. His is love of his work and of building things and always looking to surprise people is something that is just as organic to his nature too.
So where does the education part come in?
Perhaps the education is merely the tools with which we work with. The tools that allow our God-given nature to shine through. And from there maybe we need to think about what tools are necessary.
I guess I'm not talking about education outside of the classroom. That's life experience, equally valuable, but impossible to predict. It's God way of educating.
But I can't give an outline of predictable life experiences except love, safety, a willingness to be there....
I don't know something is still amiss. Maybe I'm muddling it.
Just continuing to think out loud....
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I was hunting a bit through the web for descriptions of excellence in education and these are some things I came up with -- I did find them thought-provoking though they cover a whole spectrum of different ideas on the subject-- which IS I suppose the point of your question, Richelle:
Unschooling Article
"LeShan was instrumental in helping me to see education differently, to question my knee-jerk responses to words and ideas. Underachievement is always bad and needs to be fixed. Or does it? We need excellence in education. But just what does "excellence" really mean? Or "challenge"? Or "standards"? Have we adjusted our educational expectations to meet the changing and increasing information available? Or are we just doing things because that's the way they've always been done? In our homeschooling, we try to approach each educational decision with fresh eyes."
Well Trained Mind "Academic Excellence"
--mostly a list of things to cover in the homeschool
Rhetoric in the Liberal Arts
"The question at the heart of liberal education is, "What knowledge must we have in order to be fully human?" ..... So, the aim of liberal education is human excellence. As one practices the art of rhetoric (and rhetorical reasoning), until it becomes "second nature" or hexis (habit), one realizes human excellence. That is why, in its golden age, rhetoric was considered the "most humane of the humanities."
Catholic Excellence in High Schools
“A true education,” the Declaration reminds us, “aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share.”...Guided by this vision, Catholic schools have always recognized the multiple ends of the person: the good of earthly society in the short-term, the good of eternal life with God in the long-term.
the Catholic school, however. ...is specially tasked, the Declaration continues, with creating an “atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity, to help youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities, and finally to order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith.”..... This outlook is a Catholic school’s reason for being and when it flags, the school’s ability to elicit academic excellence and to instill virtue tends to weaken as well.
Motivation by Excellence - (Robinson Curriculum)
"A fundamental cycle is present in most remarkably successful personal activities: An individual likes to do the things at which he excels—and he excels at the things he likes to do—and he draws more motivation from the fact that he excels. If he ceases to excel, he ceases to like the activity, and he seeks motivation elsewhere; this diminishes his efforts in the primary activity and lowers still further the quality of his performance. ...The key to success is to focus upon the essence of the first cycle—excellence and motivation built upon truly individual and independent performance of important work."
Lots of quotes on education in the homeschool HERE
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tovlo4801 wrote:
Maybe someone could direct me to some particular CM writings that might give me some insight with these questions.
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Here's a little quote from the Ambleside website:
"Charlotte Mason defined education as a series of relationships formed by the learner as he developed intimacy with a wide range of subjects - something she called, "The Science of Relations." Her philosophy directed her use of the methods outlined here. She believed that children are able to deal with ideas and knowledge, that they are not blank slates or sacks to be filled. She thought children should do the work of dealing with ideas and knowledge rather the teacher acting as a middle man, dispensing filtered knowledge. Children should be taught the fallibility of reason, and that the responsibility of each individual is not in reasoning out the proofs, but in making sure the initial idea or assumption is sound. She saw no separation between intellectual and spiritual life of children and adults, but believed that all truth is of God, regardless of the vessel it comes from. "
What is CM?
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tovlo4801
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julia s. wrote:
Perhaps the education is merely the tools with which we work with. The tools that allow our God-given nature to shine through. And from there maybe we need to think about what tools are necessary.
Just continuing to think out loud....
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Julia,
I tend to see education the way you describe it here. To me education is aquiring the tools needed to fulfill our potential.
Something occurred to me as I read what you'd written. Education often is considered something provided for us by some outside source (an institution or an expert of some sort). It is something that can be measured by steps followed and the documentation that comes with completion. When I talk about education I'm talking about that aquiring of understanding and skills that allow us to function well in this world. I believe people can come out of excellent institutions with impressive documentation, but without truly being excellently educated. I think people can truly be excellently educated without any form of documentation that makes it official.
I looked up the definition of education in my dictionary. The definition involves knowledge, skill, mind, and character being developed by formal study, teaching, or training. The definition for educated is having, or showing the results of, much education . We can't demonstrate mastery of an education we have not really received (IOW freely embraced and internalized). It doesn't describe education as just the giving of information; it describes the receiving. So you can attend a school and come out uneducated to some level if you didn't really receive the education. That is why I think the enthusiasm is so important. It is in the caring about something that we engage our free will and take ownership of it. I don't really know how to accomplish this, but I think our greatest task as home educators is not to simply fill a plate in front of our child with information, but to inspire them to want to pick it up and truly receive it.
I started digging around my dictionary trying to find the right word to describe what I wanted to provide for my children. I found the definition for understanding: 1 the mental quality, act, or state of person who understands; comprehension, knowledge, discernment, sympathetic awareness, etc. 2 the power or ability to think, learn, judge, etc.. This is not how I'm used to describing what I want to provide for my children, but honestly this is much closer to my goal for homeschooling.
Someone excellently educated is someone who has been inspired according to their gifts and abilities to truly receive the knowledge available through formal training and personal study in order to attain the goal of understanding. Kind of wordy, but how's this for a starting point?
I'm spending way too much time on the computer typing and re-typing my thoughts on this (this morning my dh asked me when I wanted him to perform the intervention for my computer usage ), but it really does help me make sense of all the worries and thoughts spinning around my head to write them down and then hear what's on your mind regarding this subject. I don't know what I'd do with all these thoughts if I couldn't work them out here. But my dh is right - I am spending too much time on the computer. Thanks for helping me work through this and putting up with my long posts.
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julia s. wrote:
I guess what I'm trying to say is I think initial enthusiasm from the child is not a barometer which is reliable. And waiting for a child to show interest might mean a loss of the oportunity at all. Also, somethings are just a means to an end (for exaple grammar) and may never engender great enthusiasm, but sort of a resigned resoluteness. The end product (i.e. a well written paper) might be it's only goal.
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I agree with you that initial enthuasiasm may not always be a sure indicator. I would say consent of the will, or motivation (and the highest form of motivation is desire to please God.)
A while back I read this quote in CS Lewis' Weight of Glory that seems to go with your point above:
"There are different kinds of rewards. There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real love, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation.
" There is also a third case, which is more complicated. An enjoyment of Greek poetry is certainly a proper, and not a mercenary, reward for learning Greek; but only those who have reached the stage of enjoying Greek poetry can tell from their own experience that this is so. The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire.
"His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just insofar as he approaches the reward that he becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward."
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This is such a good discussion and I fear being too pithy in my remarks.
When I think of education as a well-rounded exposure to the many disciplines in a liberal arts education (math, science, literature, philosophy, history etc.), I find myself drawn to Charlotte Mason or even classical methods that use some kind of systematic approach to engagement with these areas.
But when I think of education as the ownership of material that I study because I must, because I am driven to, then I see it as a lifelong process of learning how to acquire what I want to know, need to know.
I want to honor who my kids are and allow their interests to drive them, but I also want to be a gateway to ideas and disciplines they would not naturally discover without some support by me. So I'm for spreading the table with a feast of ideas (to borrow Charlotte's term), living my education before them, and my quest to learn with my particular passions in hopes that they will feel they can do the same.
What I don't want to do is to assume they must get this rich "education" all while under my tutelage. It may just be that they don't develop a true interest in or appreciation for literature or art until they hit their thirties... like me. It still counts!
Julie
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ALmom
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What a wonderful discussion, full of so many insights! I am so grateful to have found this board and to realize I am not alone in my insecurities and frustrations.
A few thoughts have come to mind as I read all these different posts and perhaps they might stir more thoughts - I'm not quite so profound as what I've read but here goes.
I read a booklet called Ignatian Education in the Home(from Kolbe) and it really seemed to pull together various things that had impressed me - Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Dorothy Sayers, real books and not twaddle and a classical education. Education or Learning is a life long process but we must help our children acquire the tools with which to learn. This is done in stages according to the readiness. Memorization is one of the tools but not the only one and certainly not the one of the most advanced tools. As individuals are individuals not everyone will begin to read at age 7 or 8 or begin analytical thinking by 9th grade but you cannot begin to analyze if you cannot read and comprehend, etc. Also you cannot begin to analyze what is happening now if you don't have some knowledge of what came before - ie some idea of people, places and events of the past. This doesn't mean every time, date and person has to be rumbling around in your head, but you ought to recognize enough to know where to go to find out more. Do I need to find books on the middle ages or about World War II to find out more about this person. I must be able to clearly express what I am thinking for myself and for others. Discipline is important as are the virtues that are a part of any Christian life. It is not the information or quantity so much as knowing how to learn. We all like to do the things at which we shine and tend to avoid the things which are more difficult for us. We need to be stretched but not beyond what we are truely capable of at the moment - that seems to be the key and an art for which we must ask God's guidance (to know our children so well that we know just where to lead them, when to demand completion of a task because they need it in order to build their own confidence or because they are succumbing to the very real weaknesses in human nature of laziness or negativity. But also to know when to back off and wait for a better time because they just are not ready yet. It is such a difficult discernment process and unfortunately no other person can figure that part out for us. How often I've wished someone would just decree from on high that this is the text or materials to use, and to yell in my ear which problem we are dealing with- laziness or great effort beyond their means, at least for now.
There are so many times that I have failed - not so much in the method or curriculum used - as in not pushing forward when I should have and not dropping something when I should have. One wise teacher told me - it really doesn't matter much what text you use if you have a good teacher (this on math after I'd bought my third Algebra text looking for the perfect one). Of course, what is a good teacher. I think it is like a good mentor - someone to encourage, help you see something that you just cannot figure out, to inspire, to lead you to find your own mistakes so you know how to do it next time - and why, to point you to the right resources, to ask the right questions that will send the person on a grand discovery. It sometimes takes more time and energy than I think I have for all 6 and I get discouraged thinking about all the wonderful fun and messy things the kids in school are doing or the homeschool family down the street and I realize I haven't discussed anything my daughter has read in this last year with her - other than to comment on her papers, even though I really wanted to. Then I have to ask myself the same questions I ask myself about the children. Am I being lazy, have I spent time on less important things when God had this for me to do - or have I really done the best I could? Is this realistic for me considering my other duties, my fading vision or whatever? Am I expecting too much of myself? Is there another way to meet needs if I am truely incapable?
Other questions I have to ask when the children are struggling or not progressing as I hoped are: Am I expecting too much in quantity or quality than they are capable of?(ie trying to get them to run before they can crawl) Recently we realized we had done a disservice to our oldest because we were trying to hurry up or felt tied to someone else's standards because we suddenly got panicky about college. Our daughter wanted to be sure we were not lightening her load unfairly due to her extensive musical commitments and thought we were too easy. She wanted structure so we went with a canned program, felt we had to complete something for a change and stuck with it, switched to something more flexible but still got caught doing everything in the plans even though they were only a suggestion and we were free to change it in any way. A wise proctor pointed out to me that some children do best with repetition and some do best with backing off and doing a few things really well. At the same time, it does us no good to kick ourselves because we spent 2 years memorizing a crazy history book to meet someone else's standards. We did gain something even from that ridiculous exercise. Our daughter who was totally intimidated by history now knows that she can get by if she must by memory and she does have some name recognition which will make it easier the next time she needs to learn something about Western Civilization - even if right now all she knows is that that was the person who was on the top of her study guide but she cannot remember a thing about him. And I learned that I needed to pray more and recognize that even our failures can become valuable. It also dawned on both of us that she would do much better in a lecture setting because of the auditory learning (duh - she wants to be a music major and it took me this long to figure this one out). I also will not make the same mistake with child numbers 2,3,4,5 and 6.
If they are falling far behind what seems to be an average for the age, is it just a matter of patience or is something wrong? We had read a number of things about what, when to expect things (Colifax's book in particular and Better Late than Early by the Moore's) so we were aware that our daughter might not be ready to read at 6 or 7 and we waited and reintroduced some things later only to discover that there was absolutely no progress. Was this normal or was there something wrong? We decided to do our own study and observe reactions, actions, etc. as we attempted to help our child learn to read. Perhaps it was the way things were introduced - we put aside the phonics program that had been such a delight for our other child and went with all kinds of things including Montessori. Nothing seemed to help and we struggled (within ourselves, trying not to disturb our daughter with any concerns or push her as we suspected some sort of problem but were also willing to wait if it was just a matter of lack of readiness and even wondered to ourselves that there really might be something called ADD) as we attempted to get some sort of diagnosis or rule out things. I suspected vision but every specialist we saw told us her vision was normal - until I just took notebook in hand and wrote every "symptom" we saw.(I was intending to just try and discover what ways she learned best)_ In my observations, I saw an eye drift and was convinced it was vision despite all the experts. We did finally get a diagnosis by insisting that it was vision and that we be sent to someone who could tell us more precisely what sort of vision problem. We did find out that she was alternately shutting off her eyes (not using them together) and other related problems with vision but not any problems with acuity. We began vision therapy to correct the problem and made a wise and terrifying decision to stop doing any English or any written work until the eyes were corrected. We struggled through therapy, but got to experience the joy of excitement as she would tell us all the things she could now do (some of which we never even knew she couldn't do). A few months after therapy was complete we went back to where we had left off and found that we had to skip ahead. Without therapy, we would have unfarily kept her back from learning all that she wanted to learn but couldn't due to her eyes. It was frightening stepping out on a limb and insisting on something being wrong - even our daughter thought I was silly as she didn't think she had any trouble with her eyes. She shared that with me one day as she was devouring the umteenth book, learning cursive (and doing it with ease and beauty) when just months before everything she had ever written in manuscript was full of backwards letters with all kinds of funny spacings and positions on the page.
I also have to look realistically at my time. We try to provide real opportunities to practice skills. Writing silly paragraphs from a textbook do not always inspire the best effort of the child but writing knowing that your book review or analysis might actually be published in a newsletter for other homeschoolers might be just the inspiration needed. It is the skill in expressing thoughts in an organized way with proofs for our conclusions, reasoning abilities and the ability to discern what an author is teaching us about human nature that are the goals. A real reader to communicate with is helpful. I do not have time to create a newletter, but one exists somewhere already. It doesn't have to be a fancy one, just the idea that someone real might read the thing.
I may not be able to do every math or science project hands-on, but the razzle dazzle isn't really needed unless the child is having trouble understanding something or needs a little awe and wonder - so I have the manipulatives available for free exploration, for showing them something new or for helping them get over a hump. Any textbook can provide practice problems. We talk around the dinner table, try to have good books and horror of horrors - we even use those deadly dull history texts. But I found that my children couldn't begin to get a handle on the sequence of events if the things of history were introduced in a haphazard way from whatever they read (even if we did put everything on a huge timeline that we made to be fanfolded and stored as an 8 1/2 by 11) and I love history so much that I once designed my own curriuculum for history - all from biographies read in a sequence with a few history stories about events appropriately placed at just the right time. We diligently began it only to discover we'd never get beyond the explorers if we were lucky enough and crazy enough to get that far. I.E. I needed a reasonable framework to keep me moving to give them a more general introduction - but we do take time and are flexible for the children to go off and explore more about a certain time or place. We also use the texts as a way to critique the lack of evidence and stir us on to discover more about why something was claimed (for which the text offered no evidence for or against) and whether or not we think we agree or disagree with the author. Another teacher might do wonderfully well with nothing but a handful of biographies and a timeline and all kinds of real books. We use all that - I just need the textbook as a guide. I guess what I am trying to say is that I have to assess not only what we feel our children need, but also what is realistic for me, the teacher, to use as a guide knowing my own strengths and weaknesses. I can get by with Saxon because I can use it as practice sheets and present the material in my own way off the top of my head, assessing the children as we go along in terms of what they really understand. Someone else may not feel as secure with math and need a text with better explanations of the concepts. I have no confidence with literary analysis and have a real hard time coming up with good leading questions so I have a hard time just reading and discussing a book. I need a really good guide in literture. But I know people who need nothing for English beyond good literature. These are the people who are great at drawing others out into a discussion. If I think science stinks, then I'll need a really good guide that will awaken my interest as well as my childs. I cannot entice a child to love something that I hate and I must do the best I can to awaken the interest.
One thing I am convinced of is that we do sell ourselves short if our goal is to cram as many facts into our heads as quickly as possible. One reason we chose to homeschool was to avoid that knowing I did it all the way through college. My teachers thought I was brilliant because I sounded just like them. All I did was memorize and I never had time to ponder because there was always so much to memorize. Now I find it difficult to reason to a conclusion (I've learned more in the homeschooling process than I ever did in school) or stick with something long enough to really get it. When we did research papers in school, I don't think we learned much beyond repeating what other experts said about something and how to document where you got it so as not to get in trouble for plagiarizing. We want our children to really think, ponder, question, search. I always think of one course my dh and I both took (differential equations). My husband knew what he was doing, but didn't pass until the third go around. He, however, went ahead and took courses that required the use of differential equations and did fine in those courses. So he was actually using the stuff. I, on the other hand, didn't have a clue, couldn't use it if my life depended on it and couldn't even figure it out the following year looking at my text book with all the examples. In desperation, I memorized the textbook examples and imitated as best I could and managed to get an A out of the course. Who really learned differential equations? It certainly wasn't me. I learned memorization skills and coping techniques and mimicry but not differential equations.
Just some ideas. I think I have begun to ramble some and I'd better get to bed so I can do what I need to do tomorrow. I cannot wait to follow more on this thread as everyone seems so full of ideas. I think many of you must have excellent reasoning skills as you are so good at getting to the point while I go off in neverland
Janet
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Karen E.
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juliecinci wrote:
I want to honor who my kids are and allow their interests to drive them, but I also want to be a gateway to ideas and disciplines they would not naturally discover without some support by me. |
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Yes! This is succinctly and beautifully put, Julie. Thanks for making my contribution to the discussion for me.
What a great thread ....
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Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: excellence in education - what is it?
