Monday, January 30, 2012

Rules of engagement



1. If you expect your house to look like Martha Stewart was here, homeschooling probably won't work. My house looks like it would qualify for disaster relief most nights.

2. Schedules are to give rhythm to the day. If today's rhythm does not match the schedule, then it (the schedule) has to be tweaked. Most days, I write the areas we are expected to cover in school, but I let Natanel pick in which order he does them. (I learn this trick from teaching Tali). Not sure how this will work with two kids. Maybe we'll have more general schedule. Maybe they will take turns picking what to do. Maybe we'll do blocks with each kid while the other one will do independent work. Maybe we"ll unschool.

3. The purpose of this is to give kids a chance to grow, not to shove knowledge down their throat and then ask if it's yummy. There are two general categories: information and skills. Information kids can get anywhere, from anyone. Skills have to be practiced till they become ingrained. The tick is to decide which skills are essential and focus on those.

4. I am OK with my kids becoming garbage-men who read philosophy in their spare time. They might have more spare time that way than becoming a PhD in philosophy. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should be doing it.

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