Math games waste time?
The Scanlons
All,
Do you think that math games and "invented spelling" and other "non-conventional learning methods" work well in an institutional environment? I see how they are marvelous for the one-on-one (or family-on-family) numbers in a household, but when you move it to school, don't you wind up with the same old same old? Won't the kids who are ready to play the more advanced games come out on top and the kids who start from a lower understanding level will just be the constant losers in the games?
I used to think that invented spelling was a bunch of garbage. What do you mean, let kids write stuff however they want??? Let them think they're doing everything a-ok?? That's nuts! But things change when you look into your son's shining, expectant eyes when he's written something the way it sounds to him, but it is spelled completely wrong. Even though you don't tell him, he figures out that he got the words wrong and he shuts down and doesn't write anything for a few months. This gets you thinking that maybe those crazy people were onto something. I can see a child coming along in his spelling in the home environment, but I can see so many kids in school just floating on, never realizing that their spelling is so atrocious and that they can't really communicate in writing.
Isn't it the individuality of unschooling that produces results and not just the kinder, gentler methods?
Thanks for your insights!
Sandy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Do you think that math games and "invented spelling" and other "non-conventional learning methods" work well in an institutional environment? I see how they are marvelous for the one-on-one (or family-on-family) numbers in a household, but when you move it to school, don't you wind up with the same old same old? Won't the kids who are ready to play the more advanced games come out on top and the kids who start from a lower understanding level will just be the constant losers in the games?
I used to think that invented spelling was a bunch of garbage. What do you mean, let kids write stuff however they want??? Let them think they're doing everything a-ok?? That's nuts! But things change when you look into your son's shining, expectant eyes when he's written something the way it sounds to him, but it is spelled completely wrong. Even though you don't tell him, he figures out that he got the words wrong and he shuts down and doesn't write anything for a few months. This gets you thinking that maybe those crazy people were onto something. I can see a child coming along in his spelling in the home environment, but I can see so many kids in school just floating on, never realizing that their spelling is so atrocious and that they can't really communicate in writing.
Isn't it the individuality of unschooling that produces results and not just the kinder, gentler methods?
Thanks for your insights!
Sandy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 10/29/03 12:05:34 AM, scanlon36@... writes:
<< when you move it to school, don't you wind up with the same old same old?
When I taught I used more games than not. I never used the textbooks they
had for us--the boxes sat sealed in the corner.
The same old same old problem with schools is kids are there against their
will.
<<Won't the kids who are ready to play the more advanced games come out on
top and the kids who start from a lower understanding level will just be the
constant losers in the games? >>
Not in my experience.
Your objection is to competition, not games. There are ways to play that
don't involve sorting people into winners and losers.
<< but I can see so many kids in school just floating on, never realizing
that their spelling is so atrocious and that they can't really communicate in
writing.>>
Kids in school have the same opportunity as kids at home to see examples of
correctly spelled writing, and to come on times when someone has misunderstood
what they've written.
Any atrocious speller you know in your life probably went to school where
they were taught phonics and spelling rules. My husband could hardly spell when
I met him (he was 21) but he COULD communicate in writing very well. He just
needed an editor. Over the years his spelling improved, slowly but surely,
because the pressure of grades and school and red pencil marks was gone and he
came to care.
<<Isn't it the individuality of unschooling that produces results and not
just the kinder, gentler methods?>>
It seems there's another question underneath your question.
Do you think the unkind, ungentle methods would "produce results" if used
individually?
That's what teachers think--they say if class sizes were smaller their
results would be better. That's what curriculum buyers think. They can do school
with one child in one grade and it will just flow along merrily.
The word "just" is problematical. "Isn't it the individuality of unschooling
that produces results and not just the kinder, gentler methods?" "JUST"?
I don't think anyone is claiming any one thing is "just" excusively the only
factor. If I had to pick a factor, love might be the most important one.
But if I had to pick its cousin, that would be freedom.
Children in most schools have no freedom of movement or attendance. They
can't even go to the toilet in freedom.
Some homeschoolers have no freedom either. Kids do what they're told when
they're told. They sit where and how they're told and they don't stop until
they're given permission. Individuality only makes that worse: it makes it
personal.
Sandra
<< when you move it to school, don't you wind up with the same old same old?
>>Depends on the teacher, depends on the kids.
When I taught I used more games than not. I never used the textbooks they
had for us--the boxes sat sealed in the corner.
The same old same old problem with schools is kids are there against their
will.
<<Won't the kids who are ready to play the more advanced games come out on
top and the kids who start from a lower understanding level will just be the
constant losers in the games? >>
Not in my experience.
Your objection is to competition, not games. There are ways to play that
don't involve sorting people into winners and losers.
<< but I can see so many kids in school just floating on, never realizing
that their spelling is so atrocious and that they can't really communicate in
writing.>>
Kids in school have the same opportunity as kids at home to see examples of
correctly spelled writing, and to come on times when someone has misunderstood
what they've written.
Any atrocious speller you know in your life probably went to school where
they were taught phonics and spelling rules. My husband could hardly spell when
I met him (he was 21) but he COULD communicate in writing very well. He just
needed an editor. Over the years his spelling improved, slowly but surely,
because the pressure of grades and school and red pencil marks was gone and he
came to care.
<<Isn't it the individuality of unschooling that produces results and not
just the kinder, gentler methods?>>
It seems there's another question underneath your question.
Do you think the unkind, ungentle methods would "produce results" if used
individually?
That's what teachers think--they say if class sizes were smaller their
results would be better. That's what curriculum buyers think. They can do school
with one child in one grade and it will just flow along merrily.
The word "just" is problematical. "Isn't it the individuality of unschooling
that produces results and not just the kinder, gentler methods?" "JUST"?
I don't think anyone is claiming any one thing is "just" excusively the only
factor. If I had to pick a factor, love might be the most important one.
But if I had to pick its cousin, that would be freedom.
Children in most schools have no freedom of movement or attendance. They
can't even go to the toilet in freedom.
Some homeschoolers have no freedom either. Kids do what they're told when
they're told. They sit where and how they're told and they don't stop until
they're given permission. Individuality only makes that worse: it makes it
personal.
Sandra
pam sorooshian
On Tuesday, October 28, 2003, at 11:41 PM, The Scanlons wrote:
front of class and giving a lecture on how to multiply fractions by
first multiplying the numerators and then the denominators. Teacher
lectures, demonstrates, and hands out exercises to do in class and then
homework to do outside of class and then a test. Most classrooms and
most homeschools do some variation of that, when it comes to math.
Taking a different approach in which kids learn math through
discussion, games, and real-life experiences is very different -
whether in a classroom environment or a homeschooling family
environment. Not going to be the same old same old, not at all.
here - that's not unschooling and could lead us off into many many
posts on classroom learning situations. But, this idea, that the people
who are more advanced would always win and less advanced always lose
--- why would you think that is more true in a classroom than among
homeschoolers? It isn't. Games are usually made more fun by adding an
element of luck, playing in teams, making questions of varying degrees
of difficulty, including all KINDS of games so that some people are
better at some types than others, finding ways of imposing handicaps on
highly skilled players, and so on. AND - there are many many
cooperative games and many games that can easily be turned into
cooperative games. We play the game SET, for example, as a cooperative
game a lot of the time, by just all of us trying to find sets, not
competing against each other to be the fastest to find them. We started
this because my middle daughter was so TERRIBLE at this game and the
youngest was so good at it. Now when one person is not finding any
sets, we give them hints and when that person finally gets one we all
cheer. OR - we made the rule that the youngest kid (the one good at it)
had to find sets that were of a certain type while the rest of us could
find any kind of set. Everybody wants the game to be fun - fooling with
the rules to make the game more fun is also a way of examining how the
game works and why it plays out the way it does and that is very
interesting and useful to think about. But - I digress.... <G> No
reason that the kids playing games in a school setting can't do the
same kind of thing, though, and a teacher could easily model that and
encourage and support it.
to help kids learn to spell better. Kids working on real projects that
they care about will ask for help with spelling. Teachers can suggest
that kids write without worrying about spelling (for kids that DO
worry, tell them to underline the words they aren't sure about and just
come back to them later) and then talk about editing for publication
and how they can proofread before they put all their poems into books
or before the website they created is published on the internet, etc.
At that point kids can go through and help each other with spelling -
the kids will know which other kids spell really well. Charts of words
that are commonly misspelled can be put up on the wall, computers will
spelling checkers can be available, etc.
when it is math concepts you're talking about. Rigid
lecture/practice/test/grade methods can be highly individualized and
can still be completely void of discussion and not involve any "playing
around" with ideas. This can result in the kind of "good students" I
see in my college classes - those who can do all the computations but
are clueless about when to do them, what they are good for, what they
mean, how to finesse tricky situations by changing the methods a bit,
how to interpret results beyond a calculated numerical answer, etc.
>Better than lecture/practice/test/grade? Yes.
> Do you think that math games and "invented spelling" and other
> "non-conventional learning methods" work well in an institutional
> environment?
> I see how they are marvelous for the one-on-one (orSame old same old what? Same old, to me, means teacher standing in
> family-on-family) numbers in a household, but when you move it to
> school, don't you wind up with the same old same old?
front of class and giving a lecture on how to multiply fractions by
first multiplying the numerators and then the denominators. Teacher
lectures, demonstrates, and hands out exercises to do in class and then
homework to do outside of class and then a test. Most classrooms and
most homeschools do some variation of that, when it comes to math.
Taking a different approach in which kids learn math through
discussion, games, and real-life experiences is very different -
whether in a classroom environment or a homeschooling family
environment. Not going to be the same old same old, not at all.
> Won't the kids who are ready to play the more advanced games come outI don't really want to spend too much time talking about classrooms
> on top and the kids who start from a lower understanding level will
> just be the constant losers in the games?
here - that's not unschooling and could lead us off into many many
posts on classroom learning situations. But, this idea, that the people
who are more advanced would always win and less advanced always lose
--- why would you think that is more true in a classroom than among
homeschoolers? It isn't. Games are usually made more fun by adding an
element of luck, playing in teams, making questions of varying degrees
of difficulty, including all KINDS of games so that some people are
better at some types than others, finding ways of imposing handicaps on
highly skilled players, and so on. AND - there are many many
cooperative games and many games that can easily be turned into
cooperative games. We play the game SET, for example, as a cooperative
game a lot of the time, by just all of us trying to find sets, not
competing against each other to be the fastest to find them. We started
this because my middle daughter was so TERRIBLE at this game and the
youngest was so good at it. Now when one person is not finding any
sets, we give them hints and when that person finally gets one we all
cheer. OR - we made the rule that the youngest kid (the one good at it)
had to find sets that were of a certain type while the rest of us could
find any kind of set. Everybody wants the game to be fun - fooling with
the rules to make the game more fun is also a way of examining how the
game works and why it plays out the way it does and that is very
interesting and useful to think about. But - I digress.... <G> No
reason that the kids playing games in a school setting can't do the
same kind of thing, though, and a teacher could easily model that and
encourage and support it.
>They don't have to correct spelling, much less GRADE on it, in school,
> I used to think that invented spelling was a bunch of garbage. What
> do you mean, let kids write stuff however they want??? Let them think
> they're doing everything a-ok?? That's nuts! But things change when
> you look into your son's shining, expectant eyes when he's written
> something the way it sounds to him, but it is spelled completely
> wrong. Even though you don't tell him, he figures out that he got the
> words wrong and he shuts down and doesn't write anything for a few
> months. This gets you thinking that maybe those crazy people were
> onto something. I can see a child coming along in his spelling in the
> home environment, but I can see so many kids in school just floating
> on, never realizing that their spelling is so atrocious and that they
> can't really communicate in writing.
to help kids learn to spell better. Kids working on real projects that
they care about will ask for help with spelling. Teachers can suggest
that kids write without worrying about spelling (for kids that DO
worry, tell them to underline the words they aren't sure about and just
come back to them later) and then talk about editing for publication
and how they can proofread before they put all their poems into books
or before the website they created is published on the internet, etc.
At that point kids can go through and help each other with spelling -
the kids will know which other kids spell really well. Charts of words
that are commonly misspelled can be put up on the wall, computers will
spelling checkers can be available, etc.
>Kindler gentler certainly makes for increased real learning ESPECIALLY
> Isn't it the individuality of unschooling that produces results and
> not just the kinder, gentler methods?
>
when it is math concepts you're talking about. Rigid
lecture/practice/test/grade methods can be highly individualized and
can still be completely void of discussion and not involve any "playing
around" with ideas. This can result in the kind of "good students" I
see in my college classes - those who can do all the computations but
are clueless about when to do them, what they are good for, what they
mean, how to finesse tricky situations by changing the methods a bit,
how to interpret results beyond a calculated numerical answer, etc.
>pam
Fetteroll
on 10/29/03 2:41 AM, The Scanlons at scanlon36@... wrote:
with any method. If a child has a reason to spell better -- like wanting
someone else to be able to read what they write or just the need to do it
the right way then they'll be motivated to figure out standard spelling.
The advantage of unschooling is that kids get to write what they want for
their own purposes, and most real writing -- though not all -- has a built
in need for standard spelling.
If a teacher can provide opportunities for those same feelings, then kids
will be motivated to spell better. The problem in school, though, is that
unless a school is very enlightened, the goal isn't to provide opportunities
for kids to write when they need to write, but to get kids to write. So that
artificial need to "write for the sake of writing" can be a big millstone
for kids and teachers. There isn't any motivation to improve the spelling in
an assigment that someone doesn't want to write and doesn't see a purpose in
writing.
Joyce
Joyce
> I can see a child coming along in his spelling in the home environment, but IIt isn't individuality so much as wanting to spell better which can happen
> can see so many kids in school just floating on, never realizing that their
> spelling is so atrocious and that they can't really communicate in writing.
>
> Isn't it the individuality of unschooling that produces results and not just
> the kinder, gentler methods?
with any method. If a child has a reason to spell better -- like wanting
someone else to be able to read what they write or just the need to do it
the right way then they'll be motivated to figure out standard spelling.
The advantage of unschooling is that kids get to write what they want for
their own purposes, and most real writing -- though not all -- has a built
in need for standard spelling.
If a teacher can provide opportunities for those same feelings, then kids
will be motivated to spell better. The problem in school, though, is that
unless a school is very enlightened, the goal isn't to provide opportunities
for kids to write when they need to write, but to get kids to write. So that
artificial need to "write for the sake of writing" can be a big millstone
for kids and teachers. There isn't any motivation to improve the spelling in
an assigment that someone doesn't want to write and doesn't see a purpose in
writing.
Joyce
Joyce
zenmomma2kids
>>Everybody wants the game to be fun - fooling with the rules to makethe game more fun is also a way of examining how the game works and
why it plays out the way it does and that is very interesting and
useful to think about. But - I digress.... <G> >>
Oooh Pam! I've been thinking about you and your suggestions about
changing game rules to see how the dynamics of the game change. I
found an alternate set of "adult" (yuck ;-p) rules in the directions
of our Sorry game. It involved getting a hand of 5 cards rather than
drawing a card to move on each turn. This enabled, no forced, you to
strategize in a completely different way. It *did* change so much
about the game and its outcome. We LOVED it.
Life is good.
~Mary