Things have been kind of crazy for me the last few weeks as we get ready to move and start new lives outside the Coast Guard. We’re in the process of buying a house in Oregon, and need to unload a bunch of stuff that we’ve been dragging around with us all of these years.

One thing about moving every four (or so) years in the military is that we tended to keep things that worked for one place because we weren’t sure if we would be able to use them again. That’s why we have salmon fishing poles and crab pots from Alaska, surfboards and snorkels from Hawaii, antiques from Illinois, and a wide variety of tools and equipment for all of our hobbies over the years.

Then there’s the homeschool books and accessories that I’ve accumulated over the past 15 years. I still remember the effort that went into choosing each item, and the days we spent using them. So many memories! I don’t mind passing my treasures on to other homeschooling families who can use them, or at least know what they’re for, so I had a yard sale last weekend, trying hard to advertise to local homeschoolers. I got rid of some stacks and piles, but ended up giving away most of it to Goodwill, where I’m afraid no one will know what to do with these things. Oh well.

Now I have the rest of the house to go through, because we absolutely will not have room for everything in our new house. In many ways, it’s nice to finally have a place to settle, and know for sure what we can and cannot use, and what will match and what doesn’t. If something is genuinely useful and I anticipate really using it in our new home, I’ll keep it. This differs from the usual advice of “Did you use it in the last year?” because our circumstances are always changing, depending on where we live. Now that we know where we’ll be for a while, we can assess just how useful the beach chairs and duck decoys will be.

For the things that are not terribly useful, I’m trying to trust my instincts as I purge. When I look at something, does it make me slump, as in “What am I going to do with this?” Or does it make me smile because it is so “me?” But it’s still a hard process, because “things” can trigger so many memories of loved ones and times we have had. Letting go of books is especially hard for me, because books are like my friends – especially the ones I read over and over as a teenager. Books are such a source of comfort and enjoyment for me, how can I decide which ones get to stay and which ones have to find a new home?

I’ll have to be ruthless with myself and read simple living blogs and quotes every morning for encouragement. I also may not get much blogging done, but I hope to have fresh perspective and renewed purpose when all of this is done!

But now there is a new report by the Economic Policy Institute that blasts a hole in that story. After crunching all the numbers, it seems that the U.S. has more than enough STEM graduates. In fact, for every two STEM graduates, only one is able to get a job in his or her field. This seems to match the reports I have been reading over the years in the “American Society of Engineering Educators” newsletters, which suggest that many of our engineering graduates are having trouble finding jobs.

Percent of high school graduates going to college, graduating, and then entering a STEM job.
Source: Economic Policy Institute

This report also challenges the critics who say that U.S. schools are failing because our students don’t score as well as China, Canada, and other rivals on international tests. While it’s true that on average, U.S. students only score in the middle of the pack, some analysts say that this is a very simplistic and misleading summary. It makes a good sound bite, but raging over our seemingly weak performance completely misses other more positive information buried in year-to-year trends, socioeconomic indicators, and test methodology. In fact, the U.S. has a lot of highly qualified students who score in the top tiers of these types of tests.

The emphasis of the report is really on clearing up misconceptions about our STEM labor market as it influences foreign guest-worker and immigration policies, but I’ll let someone else fret over that.

What concerns me is the whole idea of pushing certain career fields on kids, even for reasons that seem noble on the surface. Whose interest does it serve? If kids choose a STEM field because everyone is telling them how desperately our country needs them, which implies job opportunities, and then it turns out not to be true, then those kids just lost out on 4 years of their lives which might have been better spent studying something they really care about.

Policymakers worry  that too many kids drop out of STEM fields while in college, but the EPI report claims that, in reality, more kids transfer in to STEM fields from non-STEM fields while in college, so the net result is usually more STEM majors at the end of 4 years than at the beginning. It seems that we are bemoaning a problem that does not exist.

Why do we give so much attention to engineering a work force that suits the needs of industry? If we only focused on what’s best for each student, I believe there will still be plenty of highly qualified and motivated individuals in every field, because all students quite naturally have different interests. With a student-led curriculum, the only thing we might have a shortage of is mindless submission.

It’s important to expose kids to lots of different things, including math and science, but they need to have the space and freedom to follow their fascinations, even if you can’t imagine how they would ever make a living doing that. If they later decide to pursue a career for monetary or security reasons, that’s up to them. Just make sure their expectations match reality – and not someone else’s agenda.

He used what is known as the whole-part-whole framework: first introduce the big concept, then break it down into smaller parts, then put the parts back together after they are mastered. Wooden carefully planned all of his practices, using 3X5 cards to keep his drills and teaching points in order. He was adamant about the fundamentals of ball handling, and took the time to teach his players exactly how to do each move, routinely demonstrating first the right way, then the wrong way, then the right way again. His feedback to the players was short, concise, and packed with useful information related to the task at hand.

He also kept his practices moving along, keeping the players focused and alert, with the first half devoted to new material and the second half devoted to repetition of previously learned skills. He believed that his players must be able to perform the fundamentals so well that they don’t need to think about them. Then, during games, their attention could be focused on the dynamics of the court.

John Wooden’s methods worked spectacularly well in basketball, and I think they could work equally well in any teaching environment. But the thing to remember is that he didn’t teach his skill drills in isolation. He taught them within the context of something the players cared about – basketball.

A lot of the skills that students are expected to learn in school, such as reading, writing and multiplication, are indeed fundamental and require lots of practice. However, teaching them in isolation, with one workbook for every subject is hardly ideal. Teachers are then forced to find some external motivation such as bribes, praise, or punishment  to keep the kids’ attention.

The better way is to teach basic skills within the context of something your kids already care about or have an interest in learning. This is really pretty easy when kids are little. Have you ever used the “Five in a Row” curriculum series developed by Jane Claire Lambert? They are an excellent example of using something a child cares about, in this case a wonderful storybook, as a starting point to teach various skills or concepts. My family LOVED using these books, and I was sad when we outgrew them.

Another thing we used were certain Scholastic math skills books because my kids thought they were fun. They loved outlandish word problems, riddles, and games. Educational software games were a hit too.

It gets harder to do this as kids get older because you probably won’t find prepared lesson plans full of advanced skill-builders in the topics that your kids most want to learn about. In this case, you might have to come up with your own 3X5 cards with ideas for practicing the fundamentals – this is the virtue of “Unit Studies.” You might be able to find pre-packaged unit studies that suit your student, but be wary. I’ve seen a lot of dull stuff out there, clearly written by people who don’t have a passion for the topic.

Better yet is to work with your student to craft your own unit study. Take whatever they are passionate about, say fashion, and brainstorm ways your child could practice some of the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. Along the way, there will undoubtedly be a smattering of history, geography, sociology, critical thinking about media and pop culture, and who knows what else.

John Wooden was able to keep the same stack of 3X5 cards and use them over and over again because he always had students who were interested in the same thing: becoming better basketball players. You will not be able to do that because your kids will all be motivated by something different. But you can use the same framework of whole-part-whole.

Can you think of ways to teach skills within the context of something your child is already interested in learning?

Buckminster Fuller

C.S. Lewis

Eccentric visionary Buckminster Fuller believed that universities spend too much time graduating specialists when what we really need are generalists. Furthermore, he believed that all children are born with the natural instinct to think and learn holistically, and blamed society for interfering with this natural tendency to instead promote specialization (see his “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” for more info here).

C.S. Lewis however thought that we did a great disservice to children by trying to teach them about too many things instead of focusing on teaching a few things very well. He wrote:

“In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.” (see citation below)

I think they both made good points, but in reality we need both generalists and specialists. We need generalists like Steve Jobs or Leonardo DaVinci who can make the connections between widely disparate subjects such as art and science, in order to see something new. But we also need people who are really, really good at what they do, even if that means they don’t know much about anything else. I don’t need or want my surgeon to be a generalist, I want him or her to be the best specialist I can find.

Fortunately, it seems that people naturally gravitate towards one or the other. Those kids who become fixated on a topic early on and never seem to want to do anything else are future specialists. Alexander Graham Bell, Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, Walt Whitman and Louis Armstrong were all like that. If they were growing up today, we might have called them “geeks” in the sense that they were obsessed with their personal interests.

Those kids who seem interested in a wide range of topics but have trouble choosing just one might be future generalists. Thomas Edison, Agatha Christie, John Muir and Benjamin Franklin were like that.

So, how should you approach this dilemma as a homeschooling parent?

We don’t want to peg our kids as either specialists or generalists because we might be wrong, and it’s not really fair to label our kids with any preconceived notions that might limit what they believe about themselves.

I will propose two solutions . . . and the first is this: let your kids guide their own studies. If they are interested in a million different things, just roll with it and help them find the books or other resources they need to satisfy their curiosity. The same applies if they are only interested in one topic. Just keep feeding them more complex material as they need it.

This was the case with my son who is obsessed with programming and math. I had no idea what resources might be best for him to learn, but he knew. He researched all the books, tutorials, and online courses available to him and made up Amazon wish lists of bizarre titles, such as 3D Math Primer and Real-Time Collision Detection, for his birthdays. He definitely went into DEPTH with his programming studies.

We also covered other topics, because they were required by college admissions offices and my son wanted to go to college. However, these topics, such as English Composition, never fired him up the way programming did. This doesn’t mean he was completely oblivious to the outside world though. This is because of my second proposed solution: Living Books.

Living books, or those books written by talented authors with a passion for their subject, expose readers to meaningful context and information in a BROAD range of subjects.

One of my son’s favorite books was The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, not because he was particularly interested in serial killers but because of the historical context of the events surrounding the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. This led to an avid interest in Edison, Tesla and other inventors; along with other books set at the turn of the 20th century involving science or the rise of industry. This didn’t make him an expert on any of these subjects, but the books he read pulled together strands of world events, geography, business, science, ethics, history, economics, and others in a way that was enjoyable and memorable for him.

This doesn’t mean that every kid would like these sorts of books, but there are wonderful living books available for every possible interest. It’s just a matter of hunting them down. Here’s a few good online sources of inspiration:

• Booklists from the Ambleside Online Curriculum
• This growing list from Amy Lynn Andrews
• American Library Association’s Notable Book List for Children
• Sonlight Curriculum has very nice recommendations for all ages
• I also like to use Amazon to discover new books similar to favorites we have already read.

The great thing about reading good books is that they introduce new ideas and topics to the reader or listener in a way that is meaningful, and thus more likely to be remembered than a textbook. Of course, a work of historical fiction will not be as thorough as a textbook, but if it leads your child to new interests or inspires deeper thinking, I’d say that’s a win.

Let your students choose which subjects they want to explore deeply, and rely on well-chosen living books to provide some breadth in their studies. I think Buckminster Fuller and C.S. Lewis would both be satisfied with this compromise.

Citation:  p 112-113, C.S. Lewis. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. New York 1955.

By John Kolko at MyEdu Corporation

An online educational service called MyEdu recently published a study called “The Academic Journey,” which neatly summarizes their research, based on surveys of 300,000 college students, on the decision making process students use to finally settle on a career after graduation.

I found this very interesting, because the study highlights how stressful it is for students to choose a major, and then possibly change their major. A lot of kids just don’t know what they want to do. They’ve spent their high school years just trying to get in to college, and once they get there, the choices can be overwhelming. It seems that liberal arts colleges are well aware of this though, and try not to force a decision until just before a student’s Junior year. Until then, students concentrate on their General Education credits, taking classes in a variety of basic subject areas. But even then, how is a person supposed to know the best fit for them if they have only taken courses such as English, College Algebra, and Psychology?

I understand why liberal arts schools do this, because it helps to create reasonably well-informed citizens with higher level thinking and communication skills. But it takes time and a LOT of money to reach that graduation platform . . . then what?  Get a job? Go to graduate school? What if that new graduate still doesn’t know what he or she wants to do?

The problem is that our public school system works hard to get kids through the conveyor belt to a productive career. There are classes that must be taken, grades that must be earned, tests that must be passed, and extracurricular activities that must be done to prove one’s worth. It is a system that takes a lot of time, and ironically, the kids who do it well may be the ones who are most lost at the end. These kids worked so hard to please everyone else that they may have forgotten what it feels like to follow their own instincts.

Just look at all of the books and programs available to help us figure out what our talents or interests are. It’s kind of weird if you think about it. Why should any of us need help to figure out what would interest us? Yet we do need help, because we have forgotten. And all of those programs attempt to return our thoughts to a time before we cared what other people thought of us, before we were conditioned to follow the system.

I wonder how things would change if every kid had 3 more hours a day and the freedom to pursue their own interests? One of the findings of MyEdu’s study was that the students who had the opportunity to partake in a “Non-Traditional Academic Experience” seemed to find it very helpful. Here’s what they said:

“Some students described a non-traditional experience that dramatically changed their outlook on life and their academic trajectory. This experience – an internship, or a semester learning abroad in another country –seemed to either reinforce a good decision to change majors, or prompt a fresh set of introspection.”

This is the sort of thing that helps kids step outside the system, even for a short period of time, and experience real life. This is the sort of thing you can do anytime. Homeschooling, if led by the child’s interests, gives kids so much more time to be themselves. The system will still be there, and you should be aware of it, but live outside it. I mean really live – go places, meet people, read books, work, volunteer, take long walks, make things – and let your kids tell you who they are before anyone else tells them who they should be.

I’m not guaranteeing that self-directed learning will help every kid choose the right life path from the beginning. Sometimes kids will have to choose between several good options, or maybe they just need more time or experience, but at least they’ll have a head start.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the plight of women and girls around the world. Is it just me, or does the situation seem to be getting worse? Domestic violence, rape, exploitation, forced marriages, poverty, disease . . .

On Valentine’s Day, I marched with a small group of people around  my local town in support of V-Day, a movement which hopes to draw attention to the ghastly problem of violence against women. Today is International Women’s Day, another movement, which is more about empowering women in general.

These are all important – there is so much work to do! But the movement that really has my attention right now is captured by a new documentary released yesterday, called “Girl Rising.” Here is the trailer:

I haven’t seen the whole movie yet . . . but I will. This issue is SO important!

Education is empowering. It’s transformative for a girl to learn how to read, how to calculate, how to take care of herself, and then to be given access to knowledge beyond her family’s experience. Studies have shown that educating girls in particular has a multiplying affect, because she will then pass on that influence to her own children and community. Educating girls gives them a chance to find a job or start a business, becoming more self-reliant, and breaking the chain of marrying young. It also teaches them that they are WORTH teaching.

Just think how life might change for these girls if they believed that they were valuable enough to go to school. Just think how their communities might change if all children, including girls, were given the tools to learn and the chance to initiate new projects or ideas.

I’m glad to know that there are already quite a few organizations on location working on this problem. What they really need is money, and for everyone to spread the word. So, I’m doing what I can.

Please check out this website to learn more about what you can do.

Have you ever felt that surge of alarming doubt when your homeschooling friend talks about her ten-year-old’s rigorous curriculum, complete with 3-page written reports, Latin flash cards, accelerated math program, and violin lessons? Or how about when your neighbor gushes praise for the new local school science program or marching band?

Does it make you reassess your decision to let your daughter play “Sims,” draw horses, and read fantasy novels all day every day?

You would have to have nerves of Zen not to let this bother you. It may be true that your daughter will miss out on the benefits of Latin, violin, marching band, and all the rest. But it is also true that those other children will miss out on the benefits of “Sims” and unlimited hours of free reading. Is it an equal trade-off? That’s the big question. Students who receive a rigorous academic education may indeed be better prepared for further academic studies at college or university, particularly when compared with an average U.S. school experience. But if you know any teachers, or spend time reading the forums that teachers frequent, you’ll hear that two of the biggest indicators for student success are having parents that care and students that care.

Students that Care

It doesn’t matter how rigorous the curriculum is if the student doesn’t want to do the work. Teachers, or parents, might be able to convince or coerce a student to complete an assignment, but that doesn’t mean the student will retain the information. There will always be those achievement-oriented students, especially with helpful parents, who work hard to earn top grades and extracurricular attainments in order to impress college admissions offices, but how much are they really learning? And what about the rest of the students who are bored, or confused, or just getting along until graduation sets them free?

This is where the true benefit of self-directed education comes in. When children (or adults for that matter) have ownership over their own education, they will care more. They will pursue subjects that are interesting to them . . . or necessary in the pursuit of something else.

When Teddy Roosevelt was a boy, he was passionately interested in the outdoors, birds, animals, taxidermy, adventure stories, and naval history. His aunt, who taught Teddy at home, required a few other subjects, such as letter writing and French, but he was “behind” other boys of his age in mathematics. It wasn’t until he was fifteen, and eager to get into Harvard, that his father hired a tutor to help him prepare. He worked so hard (6-8 hrs a day) that he was able to do three years of mathematics in only two years.

Kids probably will not pursue subjects that you wish they would.

An 8-year-old would never say, “I want to learn more about language arts.” But they might pick up a book beyond their present reading ability and read it anyway. Or they might enjoy making up stories to play with their friends. Kids want to find answers to their own questions (“What does a leech look like?” or “Where would I look for a Sasquatch?”), and explore their favorite subjects in exhaustive detail. I had one son who was obsessed with deadly snakes (non-deadly snakes were of no interest), and he wanted to read every book we could find on the subject until his interest shifted to Aliens (deadly ones). Later, he moved through a procession of interests, including Greek Mythology, Yu-gi-oh cards, Tin Tin comics, fantasy novels, Shakespeare, weight-lifting, acting and singing. Along the way, he also learned how to read well, spell, write amazing prose, conquer math tests, memorize long poems, and identify logical fallacies.

Younger kids prefer concrete over abstract learning. They would rather build perfect squares out of Legos than learn how to square a number on a workbook page. This doesn’t mean they will never learn about square roots or grammar or the scientific method; it just means that they will learn it when they are ready for it. When they are ready for abstract concepts, it’s much easier for them to dive in and cover more material.

There will ALWAYS be Gaps

Even if your child went to the best college-prep school in the country, there would be “gaps” in the curriculum. There is no possible way we could teach children everything there is to know in a dozen years of school. There is no possible way any of us could learn everything there is to know in a dozen lifetimes. The thing to ask yourself is this: “Since we can’t learn everything, what are the most important things to learn?”

If your child doesn’t get to have a say in this, then she must decide . . . either to do as she is told or to rebel. With the first option, it’s hard to say how much the child is truly learning and she may forget what it feels like to be truly interested or curious. With the second option, the child might just reject any and all adult help, which will make independent learning very difficult.

If your child does get to have a say in what is most important to learn, and their opinions are truly honored, then a balance can be reached. Both parents and children will care. Children will feel a sense of ownership, but also know that they have their parents’ support and help whenever it is needed. It’s good to research college and/or job requirements together, but remember that sometimes a student’s true zest for learning can lead to places that neither one of you might expect.

Following along with someone else’s curriculum is like following along someone else’s trail. It may be a fine trail, but you will always end up where the other trailblazer meant it to go. Take the chance to go off trail and explore a little – or a lot. Teddy Roosevelt would approve.

How do your children feel about their curriculum? Did they help to choose it? Why? If it’s boring, do they understand or agree with the reason to stay with it?

This is becoming easier every day, thanks to the proliferation of online tutorials, courses, and schools. Over the next few weeks, I plan to research these options to learn which ones might be the most useful for homeschooling families. In the meantime though, here’s a MASSIVE repository of links for free online courses that was brought to my attention:

Open Education Database

  This site compiles searchable links to over 4300 free courses in Arts, Business, Education, Engineering & Computers, Liberal Arts, Math, Medicine and Science offered by educational institutions all over the world. The other very nice thing about this site is that they provide reviews, rankings, and listings of online colleges and degree programs to help you find the right program for you. I did not find any courses targeted at kids; the level of difficulty ranges from high school to graduate level.

The people behind oedb definitely put a lot of work in to compiling this reference – they are the librarians of virtual education. You’ve heard of MIT OpenCourseware, Khan Academy, University of Reddit, and all the other biggies (here’s the post I wrote earlier about Stanford). But instead of searching through all those sites to find what you want, oedb has compiled it for you. It’s worth checking out!

Recently, I’ve been messing around with infographic websites, looking for better ways to help my OLLY app customers get started. It’s always hard to learn how to use new software, especially one with a lot of different features, and no one really wants to wade through a lot of text. I have some video tutorials on how to use certain features, but I think a graphic flow map would give a better overview of the whole system at once.

That’s the beauty of infographics – the ability to pack lots of information into a small space by combining text with visual elements such as pictures, shapes, colors, symbols, charts, graphs, etc. It’s actually a lot of fun playing around with these, and it seems to me that kids might also enjoy making visual representations of subjects that are interesting to them.

Be warned: I’m not saying that making information graphics is easy, particularly when you have to first learn to use software to make them. I am suggesting a hands-on approach with paper, markers, scissors, and maybe magazine clippings of words and photos. If your kids are really into computers and want to try the digital approach, there are some simple do-it-yourself sites like ManyEyes, Creately, and Gliffy for diagrams. I used ABCya! Word Clouds for Kids for the word cloud at the top of this post (super easy).

I also found some interesting looking software for kids: Inspiration for grades 6-12, and Kidspiration for grades K-5 (see the examples below). I have not tried either of these, but the demos shown on the website make them look easy to learn and visually appealing for kids.

Your kids could also try out some of the graphic capabilities of Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. Visiting online tutorials and help sites will get them started, and any time spent learning to use those applications will be worthwhile for future projects at school and on the job.

Even if your family is not inspired to make their own infographics, it’s fun (and educational) just to look at what other people have made. Here’s a few sites that I particularly like:

Visual.ly

Visual.ly is a place for graphic designers to showcase their work, and for businesses to find designers. Just do a search of their “Visualizations” to see the extraordinary variety.

Good.is

Good is another inspiring site, especially if you are an idealist who wants to save the world.

Kids Discover
Kids Discover has a nice collection of infographics especially for kids in a wide range of science, history and geography topics.

Avatar Generation
Another cool site chock full of apps, games and infographs related to kids and technology.

As you look at different examples of information graphics, notice that the best ones have a cohesive theme along with original, accurate information and compelling graphics. There are a lot of bad examples out there – see if your kids can distinguish and explain the elements that make some visualizations better than others.

For more information on how infographics might be used to inspire reluctant report writers, please see my earlier post here.

I’m not usually a fan of rap music, but these guys have a gift for lyrics and rhythm that make me want to stand up and cheer.

I was first introduced to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis the same way so many other people found them, through their immensely popular “Thrift Shop” video on Youtube (my son told me I HAD to see it). I loved it, and started checking out all their other songs on Youtube, which convinced me to buy their new album The Heist.

So why does this particular song resonate with me? Because it reminds people that no one is born talented. We all are born with certain gifts and natural inclinations, but it takes a lot of work and practice to turn those inclinations into something big.

The title of the song, “10,000 Hours” is borrowed from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success, in which Gladwell highlights the extraordinary advantages of culture and timing in predicting success. He also argues throughout the book that it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice for anyone in any field to achieve recognition in that field.

Working 10,000 hours isn’t a guarantee of success; there are plenty of poor souls who have worked at least that long with nothing to show for it. But if you look at any acknowledged expert, whether in sports, the arts, business, medicine, science or whatever, they will have spent an average of 10,000 hours to get to that point.

There are a lot of factors in success, but hard work seems to be the one that most people try to skip. Macklemore is now delivering that message to every young person who listens to him. He talks about the long grueling hours in his mother’s basement (how many great ambitions must have started in the basements and garages of this world!), the struggle to improve himself, and his dedication to becoming a musician. He also takes a shot at “No Child Left Behind,” suggesting that the school system did not expect much from him, especially with his low SAT scores.

In Macklemore’s words: “Take that system. What did you expect? Generation of kids choosing love over a desk. Put those hours in and look what you get. Nothing that you can hold, but everything that it is.”

I like it.