I was blown away when I read an article that was published on CNSNews.com a few weeks ago about a $500 million Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge endorsed by President Obama. In the article, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made this statement…. “You really need to look at the range of…
Category: Learning
10 Unusual Ways to Explore Math
I confess. I never really liked math. I played the school game well so I received pretty good grades, but after I passed the test (even after receiving an A in most cases), those rules, theorems and facts didn’t stick around for very long. The problem was everything was drilled into me, or as I…
If Skills & Subjects Are Different, Why Do Schools Treat Them the Same?
There’s a big difference between history and math, and it’s not just a difference between stories and numbers. There’s also a big difference between reading and science or geography. Reading and math are skills. Think of them as analogous to learning to talk or how to ride a bike. Almost all kids learn how to…
An Untraditional Unit Study
When I was first introduced to the concept of unit studies, it really appealed to me. Even as a public school teacher I could never understand spending 45 minutes reading a book, then the next 45 minutes learning history totally unrelated to the literature we’d just read. Then it was crazy to be whisked off…
8 Ways to Provide an Interest-Led Learning Home
Respect your child’s interests. It seems pretty obvious, but what happens when our children’s interests don’t interest us? Or, even worse, what if those interests even seem a bit silly or strange? First, they don’t seem that way to your child. You don’t need to like everything your children do, but you do need to…
Raising Curious Kids
Most people say they value curiosity, especially parents. Parents want their children to be curious, creative and imaginative. But, if we look at what most adults view as “appropriate” outlets for children’s behavior and learning, are those qualities really valued? Here are five qualities almost all curious kids possess: inquisitiveness, imagination, inventiveness, messiness, and fearlessness. …
Why Lesson Plans Don’t Work Part 2
When I wrote last week about why lesson plans don’t work, I realized this position would be a bit controversial since almost all schools, including many homeschooling families, rely on lesson plans. But I feel it’s important to get the message out that most learning doesn’t need to be strictly pre-planned; in fact, in most…
Why Lesson Plans Don’t Work
When I was a teacher I was required to keep lesson plans-detailed lesson plans that outlined every page we would read, every writing assignment I’d give to the kids and every new vocabulary word we’d learn that week. In theory, this seems smart, right? It’s a good thing to plan ahead for what you want…
Questions: The Heart of Self-Directed Learning
Why do that man’s eyes look funny? How will my cut heal? Will she be dressed up like a mummy (my daughter asked before attending her first funeral). Most of the time I welcome and enjoy my children’s questions. Sometimes, though, after they’ve asked questions almost nonstop for an hour, I’m left feeling a little…
Learning All the Time
I recently watched a commercial that really disturbed me. In the commercial, a woman appeared on the screen and started talking about “early childhood education.” The image shifted to scenes of small children sitting at tables doing worksheets and then crowding together on a carpet waving their hands in the air. The woman’s voice narrated…