Dragons and Rockets and Pi, Oh My!

I attended a Homeschool 101 meeting for new homeschoolers and I was blown away by some of the observations and examples of "interest driven learning" and "child directed" learning and how allowing a child to follow his passions and interests unfolds as the child matures and grows. As the child gets older he may go from asking hundreds of questions about a wide range of subjects to honing in and becoming an expert in one.

The typical scope and sequence designed for the classroom can work against that natural learning and curiosity for the child learning in freedom - the home. It seems mind boggling that strictly adhering to a program designed to teach children "everything they need to know when they need to know it" could actually slow some children down. A few of us have observed this.

I heard a few examples but I have an example of how my children's curiosities take us away from our school books or my lesson plans:

The other day I decided to read "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi" to my children for math. Looking through the book I realized that there were a few words I needed to familiarize myself with: circle, radius, diameter, and circumference...

I wrote these words on one of our dry erase boards and let the children witness as I review-taught. That's mom purposefully thinking out loud as she familiarizes herself with something she should know by now. Believe it or not my children have learned much from my bad memory.

For radius I told the children to think of sun rays. I drew a sun and several "rays" which "emanated from one point." I drew these rays about the same length which eventually suggested the shape of a bigger circle. (This was to set up my explanation of circumference.) As I drew these many "rays" I said, "rays" and "radius" out loud.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the book: Just mentioning the word "sun" set my seven year old off into a question tangent. He wanted to know "how come our sun is a small star but it's so bright?"

I explained that our sun is very close to us compared to the other stars and that is why it appears bigger and brighter... I didn't finish my explanation because that triggered another question, "How far away is the sun from earth?"

My hubby and I couldn't remember so I said, "I don't know the exact distance but if you headed towards the sun in a rocket it might take several months to get there." I added, "If you headed for the nearest galaxy at light speed you wouldn't get there in your life time..." Which brought up more questions... "How fast is light speed?" which triggered more questions...and more...

We ended up in a family discussion of what all it would take to get a human to the nearest galaxy - alive.

It is common for one topic to trigger curiosity about other topics. This is part of the reason many homeschoolers see adhering to a typical scope and sequence as limiting their child's learning.

Even my own plans to read a book and to talk to my children about "radius" had us orbiting subjects like "the solar system" and "light speed."

I think these questions that take us away from the lesson plan can be more important than the lesson. When a child asks questions it shows that child is thinking. Thinking should be the goal of learning and not just finishing a workbook. The questions can then be the curriculum.

Trying to review these words so that I could read a book I planned to read sparked so many questions that we almost didn't make it to the book. It got to the point where I told the kids, "Go get your notebooks because I want to read this story to you TODAY but keep asking questions and I'll write them down..."

The story is about a little boy who has to solve a riddle to save his father's life. The riddle is the definition of Pi and the little boy has to find that number. You get to be there for his "ah hah" moment and you are there as he tests his theory on an onion, a pie, a wagon wheel...

After we read the book we did our own hands-on discovery of Pi. We collected several round objects from the kitchen and cut strips of paper the exact length of the diameters. Then we could see how for each object (circle) three of the diameter sized strips fit around the circumferences "with some left over."

Days later we are still using the questions and looking up and talking about exact distance from the earth to sun, astronomical units, and today (now a few days ago) I said something crazy like, "I guess the closest we can get to time travel is looking up at the stars at night." Which was a remnant of our discussion of "light years" and galaxies being so far away it would take several generations to get there...

So we have already "put down the school books" to go off down a "bunny path" as one veteran mom put it...

This is an example of what I mean when I talk about focusing on the learning and avoiding the schooly things. I will abandon our "school" for "learning." The questions are the superior curriculum and I will "let the questions be the curriculum."

Rebecca ツ

Converting Fahrenheit to Celcius (turned into a rant on democratic schools)

My children and I have a little game that we play whenever we get in the car. When I start the engine we all look up to see what the temperature is in Fahrenheit and then everyone guesses what the temperature would be in Celsius. Then I click the button to change the temperature display to Celsius and the winner gets nothing but the hoorays or boos from the other family members. If my oldest is with us he will win. After today, the game will forever be changed as my daughter was introduced to the conversion formulas in her math work book.

Do you remember the formulas? I certainly didn’t remember the formulas and I just went over all of this with another child just a few years ago. I’ve been in the fifth grade THREE TIMES and still, I am NOT SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER.

Here it is just in case you are like me and can’t remember:

F=9/5(C)+32

That’s three easy steps!
1. Replace the letter C with a numeral (temperature) and multiply it by 9.
2. Divide your result by 5.
3. Add 32 to that.

C=5/9(F)-32

What is interesting is while I don’t remember the temperature conversion formulas that I’ve learned and that I have taught twice; I do remember what my first child was ‘into’ when he learned how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. I remember because it was during a time in our home school adventure when I decided to try out the methods used by “democratic schools.” If you haven’t heard of democratic or free schools let me just say that they are a shocking contrast to the schools that you and I spent 13 years attending. Many of us can’t fathom their existence without some twitching of the eye.

A democratic school is a school where the child is free and has control over what she will and will not learn. The child would work with teachers to create a curriculum and the “teacher’s” job would be to find ways to bring that learning to the child. The child may want to learn to play the guitar for the next few months and/or may want to learn how to create web pages. The child has that freedom. The children are encouraged to teach classes and to share what they have learned with others. The graduating body will have its share of “slackers” just like any other school. The alumni stories are amazing!

Anyway, after a several months break from academics and encouraged by a bit of “burn out” academically, I decided to give democracy a chance – in education. I told my children that we would only learn about the things they wanted to learn about. I told my children to make a list of all the topics that they wanted to learn about and that their lists would become their curriculum. They were in charge of “school.”

Each child created their own list. My daughter dictated her list to me. Her list contained the names of various fluffy creatures like: lion, fox, cheetah… We took the lists to the library and checked out many books on the first words on each list. We spent the next few days on the living room floor reading, learning, and sharing our discoveries with each other. This was a wonderful time in our educational journey together as a family.

My son had “gems and minerals” first on his list. He was always fascinated with rocks. One of the first books that he dictated to me before he could read was titled, “MY ROCKS” and it was a book about his rock collection. So it was natural that he would check out many books on this topic. He began to take an interest in diamonds and “diamonds” was added to his list of topics that he wanted to learn about. As he was reading about diamonds he found out that they had a melting point or boiling point, I can’t remember. This book only gave this temperature in Celsius. This made him curious about what how to go about converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit was added to his list. One day, he came to me and said, “Mom, help me memorize the periodic table of elements.” It was amazing to watch one topic, “gems and minerals,” trigger a curiosity about diamonds, converting temperature, and eventually the periodic table of elements. When he wanted to rest, I let him.

My daughter at some point in her self created interest driven curriculum ended up wanting to learn how to create a webpage to display some of her favorite animals and her artwork. We did that. I miss those days and my son just told me the other day that he thinks he actually learned more during that time of academic freedom that at any other time in his life.

Many people fear that allowing a child this type of freedom would result in havoc or laziness but I can assure you that I didn’t see that.

I saw the opposite. I watched as one topic or interest would trigger another like a domino effect. Something happens to a child when they are allowed to be in charge of their learning. It becomes “theirs” and they cherish it more. Freedom is a good thing, especially for children, and it's very important for learning.

All that flooded back to my memory yesterday as my daughter’s math book explained the concept and gave the formulas for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and vise versa.

My son was very influenced by his sister's lesson. Here is the post about that: Family Learning: Coffee thoughts - multiple ages in the learning environment

Homeschool burnout indicates a need for change.

A discussion of “free schools” over at the local Homeschool Yahoo! Group reminded me of one of my favorite memories of homeschooling my children. It was a time in my life when I had come out on the other side of a bout with "burnout." Burnout is terrible but it forced me to rethink “school” and “learning” and to decide which would take precedent in our home.

All teachers and students know what burnout is. For the teacher or homeschool mom it’s when going through the motions of school becomes drudgery and the family is stressed out. For the student or child it’s when the mind just doesn’t absorb anymore, the ability to focus is lost, and eager learning has been replaced with frustration; a learner’s block. Just going through the motions of school had replaced the excitement of life and learning in my home.

Burnout was inevitable, but it caused me to take an honest look at my goals for my children’s education. It forced me to ask myself some very important questions. Was I homeschooling my children so that we could play school at home or was I homeschooling my children so that we could take advantage of their unique learning styles and their individual personalities and interests? Was I homeschooling my children to play school with them or so that they could learn effectively? Was I trying to engage their short term memories or to change their thinking and their lives? Who should be in charge of designing curriculum publishing companies or children? Should a school day have a beginning and an end or should children be free to learn from their community all day long?

The answers to these questions were obvious to me. Burnout was the symptom and change was the only cure. I put the school books away and I told my children that they were now in charge of what they would learn. I told them to make a list of everything that they loved or wanted to learn about. My daughter dictated her list and her list consisted of various fluffy creatures that you would find in a zoo. How’s that for a curriculum? We took our two lists to the Victoria Public Library. I told each child to checkout books about one or two of the items on their lists. My children took home about 20 books each and we spent the next few days on the living room floor surrounded by several piles of books. My daughter couldn’t read at the time so I read to her.

I remember that my son’s long list contained the word “rocks.” I remember “rocks” from that list because that topic took him on a self directed journey through various topics and subjects. It was amazing to watch my son’s list of interests morph and flow through these various topics. He was in about the 5th grade and his curiosities lead him from gems and minerals to a focus on diamonds which led him to try to memorize the periodic table of elements and then to learn how to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit – all knowledge that would never be tested on the fifth grade TAKS test or some standardized achievement test! One of the books on gems and minerals gave boiling and melting points in Celsius only. A reason to learn!

I remember my knee-jerk reaction when he handed me the periodic table of elements and said, “mom help me memorize this.” My first thought was, “But 5th graders don’t have to know this.” Isn’t that sad that my old mind-set would creep back in and limit my child? Allowing him to follow his interests actually freed him to learn about concepts that his 5th grade math or science texts didn't address. That year I learned about myself and my preconceived notions about children, learning, schooling, and testing. Do you think I learned to respect the TAKS test and it’s results that year?

Sitting on the floor in a pile of books exploring topics that my children were interested in was rewarding on a whole new level. I was connected with my children, learning with them, and my children were actively engaged in and in charge of their learning. I was a part of that learning journey and it did take us all, as a family, on a roller coaster ride through various subjects. Because they were learning about the things they enjoyed their days were filled with excitement and our home was full of eager learners once again!

When I feel burnout creeping back into my home these discussions of free schools, democratic schools, interest driven learning, and unschooling remind me to be more flexible and that change is needed in my home; a change that will free my children so that they can learn without frustration or drudgery.



We have experimented with many different educational philosophies and approaches over the years but that was as close to a "free school" as my family had ever been. I'll share other examples of my favorite memories of homeschooling later.