It's not exactly chaotic here at the home of the Evil Genius, but I feel like I'm going in circles. I'm just sort of drifting to whatever hits me at the moment, which is usually staying on top of the girls to make sure they get their assignments done. I'm the Cookie Mom for Wildchild's Brownie troop, there's a meeting tonight for Cookie Moms, and the pants I want to wear need to go in the dryer. I also need to get my fajita meat marinating so I can cook it for dinner tonight. Also, I know there were some errands I thought about yesterday that I wanted to run today, and I have completely forgotten what I wanted to get. Ack!
I'm having a "grass is greener at the other homeschool" kind of feeling. Now, there's a good reason we're thinking about switching the Scientist's math curriculum. My husband hates the way math is taught in this country (and not the fuzzy math kind, which I read so many horror stories about.) He's hated the way math is taught since he was in grade school. The Scientist thinks the same way he does, mathematically, and the result is that I get frustrated teaching her math, she gets frustrated trying to learn it, and her father can help her understand but is frustrated with the curriculum. So we're looking at Singapore math. In this case, it's good. But I have this general tendency to be constantly re-evaluating our curriculum and thinking there's something better out there. Not healthy, I know. I need to focus more on working with what I have.
BTW, the Scientist just took care of the dryer for me. She has some things she wants to get in the washer. Now I remember why having older kids is good. I'll try to remember this during her next hormonal moment.
5 comments:
Well, I had typed out a long comment, and now its gone! Waaa! I feel like crying. As you know, this is my 5th year homeschooling and I was curious what your husband specifically doesn't like about how math is taught and which curriculums you have tried. We have been through at least five and they are all so different and I'm always looking for a second opinion! :-) Also, what science curriculum do you use and what are you thinking about switching to?
Well, he can say it better than I can, but from what I can see, he thinks like a mathematician, and mathematics curricula seem to be written from a more simplistic point of view. He hates how mathematics is explained; he also thinks algebra should be taught in about fifth or sixth grade.
The Scientist had Saxon in parochial school and hated the repetition. We've also used Calvert math, and I'm currently just using Spectrum math. Singapore math seems to be more rigorous and hopefully the terminology will be better than in U.S. curricula.
I've used McGraw-Hill science all the way through homeschooling, but Wildchild just doesn't retain enough of what we go over. I'm thinking about Apologia science. On the other hand, I need to make sure a science curriculum is rigorous enough for the Scientist, but also doesn't bore her. Apologia might work for her too. Some of the Christian rhetoric seems a bit over-the-top, like lamenting how the planets are named after "Satan's false gods." Like the kids are gonna become pagans because of what a planet is named after. But the text in general seems engaging.
me too, but i have had two nana-naps this week, trying to catch up on lost sleep. my *spinny* feeling is totally hormonal, i can almost predict it on the diary. it lasts a couple of days every month, and then goes away again... X
Argh - blogger just ate my comment, too!
Anyway, I call those moments the "but I'm nots" as in:
"But I'm not doing x, y, and z and that -other homeschooler- is!"
I have a couple problems with all of the Math Curricula that I've seen our daughters use.
First, having a fairly heavy mathematical education (up through some graduate work), dumbing down clear, accurate terminology drives me insane. Especially when the "simpler" terminology is often ambiguous and less clear to the ear. For example, "take away" is no easier for a child to learn than subtract. I have yet to find a grade-school age child that didn't understand the terms subtract and subtraction after about 3 minutes of explanation. The term is less ambiguous, easier to understand in conversation and what they'll need to know if they pursue any higher math than arithmetic. Heck, the term arithmetic itself should be used. Just calling it all math, blurs what you're trying to learn.
Second, (and this is closely related) is the imprecise wording of problems. I'm not complaining about "word problems". I'm talking about asking students to "estimate" an answer without any guidelines on how precise to be. Than having an exact, expected answer. Why not teach rounding to a given precision and do it right?
Third. This is my longest held belief about US math teaching. I formed it during my freshman year of high school. I remember reading a book in English class and realizing the boy in the book was learning Algebra much younger than we did at the time. I refined my thinking as I tutored other students in computer programming in high school. I realized that most of them fully understood algebra (which most programming is heavily based on), but were sure they didn't. They'd been taught that they wouldn't be able to understand it before high school age. So, they assumed that when it seemed too easy, they were missing something.
I've decided from this that we teach mathematics much too slowly. It seems that most of these concepts were covered much more quickly at one time.
Nothing has really changed in arithmetic, algebra (simple algebra, that is) and even basic calculus in hundreds of years.
If anything, people should be better able to grasp the concepts. We are exposed to much more math throughout life. We have much better literacy. And, we have overwhelmingly better nutrition. So, why should we teach math more slowly?
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