Re: 2228 - Math, and more
Luz Shosie and Ned Vare
on 8/11/02 8:09 AM, [email protected] at
[email protected] wrote:
Your post got into lots of details of how you did math with kids. Almost no
one uses much of the math they did in school. They use what they need, and
if they remember it. Why? It wasn't relevant to their lives then. (the
didn't need to know the speed of that train or when it would get to the
station, and cared less)
OTOH, a homeschooler taking a trip across Nebraska who is hungry and hopes
to get to a town soon where there might be a restaurant, might take a look
at the map and find out when s/he might get dinner.
Our kid never studied math at all growing up, but always knew how to figure
out things, because math is common sense. Frequent use of money helps a lot.
When our youngest son decided to go to college, he got a SAT practice book
and took the test. Scored 1390 - higher than half of the Valedictorians in
all the high schools in the state. (their scores were published in the
paper)
How did he do that? I can't tell you, but he did play lots of games with
complicated rules, earned his own money, bought his own clothes and his own
computer with that money. He knew how to find out stuff by knowing how to
use the library...and its computers (catalog)
This boy, in fact, never looked at any school books as he grew up. He got
library books by the dozens on subjects that interested him (libraries
seldom carry school books -- reason: they're junky), he liked to go on trips
and was the navigator from an early age. He was completely in charge of his
own education from the time he came home after ten sessions of Montessori
and said he didn't want to go any more. While we surely made some
suggestions and found out things that were available to kids, such as the
local crafts center, he like being in charge of his learning.
In June, he graduated from Hunter College in NYC, after living in his own
apartment for four years, taking the subway to classes etc. He spent the
four years on the dean's list and was Magna Cum Laude, a fraction of a point
from Summa, but not too shabby. Several of the top students were
homeschoolers, as we've come to expect.
In college, with no math "to speak of" he took a review course in freshman
year. Scored perfect, as usual. So he knows that math is there when he needs
it, and he also knows that the basics are all totally obvious and easy. (we
don't need endless reviews and/or testing or what we learned cold in second
grade, but that's one way that schools waste our lives.
I just got off the phone with a woman in CT who called for the first time.
Her daughter is 13 and enrolled in the local community college. Another girl
I know entered a cc in CT at age 11 and is now a junior at 14.
The message is: Learning is easy. Get on with it. It doesn't even need a
name, like "math." It's distance, weight, area. etc. Those don't threaten
people until we say they're MATH. Then, some kids freeze.
For the real list of the uses of math, please go to an article that Luz
wrote, called "A Few Words About Math" at www.borntoexplore.org/unschool
you'll like it, I'm sure.
Best wishes,
Ned
[email protected] wrote:
> Message: 20Deb,
> Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 02:26:57 -0400
> From: Deb <herbtea@...>
> Subject: Math
>
> I was wondering... we've talked about math a little bit. I'd like to
> hear how everyone's kids have done unschooling how far they went with
> it.
Your post got into lots of details of how you did math with kids. Almost no
one uses much of the math they did in school. They use what they need, and
if they remember it. Why? It wasn't relevant to their lives then. (the
didn't need to know the speed of that train or when it would get to the
station, and cared less)
OTOH, a homeschooler taking a trip across Nebraska who is hungry and hopes
to get to a town soon where there might be a restaurant, might take a look
at the map and find out when s/he might get dinner.
Our kid never studied math at all growing up, but always knew how to figure
out things, because math is common sense. Frequent use of money helps a lot.
When our youngest son decided to go to college, he got a SAT practice book
and took the test. Scored 1390 - higher than half of the Valedictorians in
all the high schools in the state. (their scores were published in the
paper)
How did he do that? I can't tell you, but he did play lots of games with
complicated rules, earned his own money, bought his own clothes and his own
computer with that money. He knew how to find out stuff by knowing how to
use the library...and its computers (catalog)
This boy, in fact, never looked at any school books as he grew up. He got
library books by the dozens on subjects that interested him (libraries
seldom carry school books -- reason: they're junky), he liked to go on trips
and was the navigator from an early age. He was completely in charge of his
own education from the time he came home after ten sessions of Montessori
and said he didn't want to go any more. While we surely made some
suggestions and found out things that were available to kids, such as the
local crafts center, he like being in charge of his learning.
In June, he graduated from Hunter College in NYC, after living in his own
apartment for four years, taking the subway to classes etc. He spent the
four years on the dean's list and was Magna Cum Laude, a fraction of a point
from Summa, but not too shabby. Several of the top students were
homeschoolers, as we've come to expect.
In college, with no math "to speak of" he took a review course in freshman
year. Scored perfect, as usual. So he knows that math is there when he needs
it, and he also knows that the basics are all totally obvious and easy. (we
don't need endless reviews and/or testing or what we learned cold in second
grade, but that's one way that schools waste our lives.
I just got off the phone with a woman in CT who called for the first time.
Her daughter is 13 and enrolled in the local community college. Another girl
I know entered a cc in CT at age 11 and is now a junior at 14.
The message is: Learning is easy. Get on with it. It doesn't even need a
name, like "math." It's distance, weight, area. etc. Those don't threaten
people until we say they're MATH. Then, some kids freeze.
For the real list of the uses of math, please go to an article that Luz
wrote, called "A Few Words About Math" at www.borntoexplore.org/unschool
you'll like it, I'm sure.
Best wishes,
Ned