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It sounds like you are suggesting teaching children only the things they are interested in and ready for at the time. Compared to teaching on arbitrary set of

by marze 17y ago

It sounds like you are suggesting teaching children only the things they are interested in and ready for at the time. Compared to teaching on arbitrary set of topics at arbitrary times, you should have big gains in learning efficiency and enjoyment, since it is inefficient to spend time attempting to convey a concept the child is not ready for or is uninterested. The child will be spending a greater fraction of the time learning. Sounds sensible to me.

bmj 17y ago
As another homeschooler, there is a fine line between gauging interest and imparting self-discipline. Of course, such "hard work" looks radically different at home than it does in the classroom. It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them, but, again, how this is carried out in the home would likely be more positive than a classroom setting. That said, I agree with the parent, and the original blog post. Our older son picked up reading and writing quickly (without much prompting from us, but his younger brother is less interested in those things, but is showing greater creative ability, so we're running with that.
- bobbin 17y ago
  > It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them Why do you need to teach them that? life does that when you pursue something you are interested in. Whenever I want to achieve something there are things I don't want to do that are necessary to do what I want.
  - olliesaunders 17y ago
    I completely agree with this. Just cultivate an attitude of ambition in them. The environment will show them what skills are necessary to achieve their ambitions. I don't believe you should teach anything without demonstrating it's use; the environment does this more effectively than any teacher can.
  - bmj 17y ago
    But if a child is never exposed to work (that is, focusing on things that don't necessarily interest them rather than simply floating between things they find fun), he may not be equipped to make the proper decisions later in life. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying--I'm not suggesting that children are simply forced to learn things, especially without any sort of context. I am suggesting that sometimes children needed to be nudged to get over the "I don't want to think hard about this" hump. We've seen this in our own kids. Our older son didn't particular like to put forth the effort to read himself, but we asked him to do it just a bit each day, and quickly he realized this opened up a whole world of stuff that he could do on his own.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
psawaya 17y ago
There are actually schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school) that attempt to teach K-12 this way. It would be interesting to read a study of how Sudbury alumni perform after they graduate, but I can't find one right now.

by marze 17y ago

bmj 17y ago

As another homeschooler, there is a fine line between gauging interest and imparting self-discipline. Of course, such "hard work" looks radically different at home than it does in the classroom. It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them, but, again, how this is carried out in the home would likely be more positive than a classroom setting. That said, I agree with the parent, and the original blog post. Our older son picked up reading and writing quickly (without much prompting from us, but his younger brother is less interested in those things, but is showing greater creative ability, so we're running with that.

bobbin 17y ago
> It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them Why do you need to teach them that? life does that when you pursue something you are interested in. Whenever I want to achieve something there are things I don't want to do that are necessary to do what I want.
- olliesaunders 17y ago
  I completely agree with this. Just cultivate an attitude of ambition in them. The environment will show them what skills are necessary to achieve their ambitions. I don't believe you should teach anything without demonstrating it's use; the environment does this more effectively than any teacher can.
- bmj 17y ago
  But if a child is never exposed to work (that is, focusing on things that don't necessarily interest them rather than simply floating between things they find fun), he may not be equipped to make the proper decisions later in life. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying--I'm not suggesting that children are simply forced to learn things, especially without any sort of context. I am suggesting that sometimes children needed to be nudged to get over the "I don't want to think hard about this" hump. We've seen this in our own kids. Our older son didn't particular like to put forth the effort to read himself, but we asked him to do it just a bit each day, and quickly he realized this opened up a whole world of stuff that he could do on his own.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

psawaya 17y ago

There are actually schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school) that attempt to teach K-12 this way. It would be interesting to read a study of how Sudbury alumni perform after they graduate, but I can't find one right now.