on the first noelle
J: Our friend Noelle
threw a party this weekend. She had a huge variety of guests, dogs, a
fire, singers, food, and drink. We had a great time and stayed till
after three o'clock ante meridiem. I met her brother Gavin, an
extremely affable guy with an adventurous history. For instance, he and
his friend traveled on motorcycles to South America, through many
countries! I hope to hear more stories about that trip soon.
Shaun Klein and his dad, Don, visited DC from Michigan. I gave them
a little tour of NASA GSFC,
and later played board games at our house with other friends.
I went to a baseball game with Brick and Alfredo. The game was a bit
disappointing, given the point
spread, but the beer, fries, and conversation were fine.
This year, our neighbors spotted the annual chicken mushroom that
grows outside of our yard. We picked it at just the right time; it's
fresh. moist, and delicious. I've been eating lots of chicken
sammitches
this week.
edu-light?
While I have adopted a child-free lifestyle, nevertheless the same
weird morality that led me to this state paradoxically pressures me to
make sure children are given all the attention and education they can
get to grow into happy adults and, after many hundreds of years, happy
cyborgs or happy uploaded sentient sims. So while I'm not interested in
making
more children, I am very interested in ensuring that
existing
children are treated with the utmost respect and kindness they deserve,
and in helping them to grow stronger and smarter. I also like to follow
issues in child development and the art of teaching.
Here are some questions I read in a
discussion
on Skepchick regarding education of young folk, along with my
opinionated answers.
(a) Why do we think it is important for kids to follow a structured
curriculum, with expected achievements/mastery tied to their age?
Because we think certain skill sets learned at a young age have an
emergent effect of improving skill sets necessary for a smooth higher
education, professional advancement, and finding and pursuing personal
goals later in life. I think it's very important to recognize kids'
interests and give them the tools to explore, but also I think that
kids, like adults, are very poor predictors of their future selves. So
some less interesting (but nonetheless important) areas of learning
must be force-fed to the kids to make sure they can use them later when
they want or need them. And there is the occasional force feeding that
suddenly opens doors to a new, fascinating paradigm for the child. I
found linguistics that way, by having to endure lessons in prefixes,
suffixes, and Latin and Greek parts of words, I was introduced to the
amazing world of linguistics.
I guess "force feeding" might be a bad metaphor, and possibly a bad
tactic, I don't know. Maybe "sneak feeding" is a better idea. Perhaps
the kids can be brought unwittingly (bad adverb maybe) into subject
areas that they aren't normally so interested in, in such ways that
their interests are piqued. Ninja teaching.
I remember one of my high school teachers would fill the blackboard
with all of his lecture notes, then we'd copy all the notes to paper,
then he'd give the lecture. All very dry so far, I know. But when he
gave the lecture he kept your attention. He'd jump up and down, make up
little jingles, go off on strange tangents, or suddenly start talking
about his bowling score from the night before. He was often very funny
and loud. The combination of copying notes and watching his antics
really made a lot of that stuff stick, and actually made history
(which, up till then, was fairly dull for me) a more worthwhile
subject. I think while he was dancing and jumping on his desk, making
the class repeat "habius corpus-- hand over the boooooooooooodddddy,"
while he was doing all that, he was ninja teaching.
As for expected achievements with age, it makes sense that schools
should have standards; it might also make sense to follow or exceed
those standards, at least roughly, because stuff learned at earlier
ages is easier to expand on later in life. For instance, kids who grow
up with two languages usually have less trouble learning a third in
college or later. I assume (perhaps erroneously) that the existing
standards have
some level of study behind the age settings and
requirements.
(b) Is it equally valid to approach childhood learning the way we
approach adult learning ... as requiring self-motivation and
resourcefulness? (Please don't read this to mean "without the help of
grown-ups" - primarily resourcefulness is asking questions of someone
who is likely to help find answers.)
It takes a lot of time and energy, but I think it's very worthwhile
learning and exploring
with your children. I think it's
sometimes better to say "let's find out" and help with experiments or
research, than it is to give a little lecture or point to an Internet.
But I'm not sure I'm answering the question here. I think
self-motivation and resourcefulness are part nature, part nurture, and
should be coaxed out and taught at an early age. I don't know how
early, or how to teach it, since I don't recall any such lessons. :)
(c) Have we as parents articulated our goals for our children's
education, and if so, do our articulated goals fit the method of
education we have chosen for them?
I hope I don't sound too conservative, but I think that part of
whatever it is that brings people happiness in life includes gaining
the ability to deal with day-to-day problems that our society will
throw their way. This includes learning about schedules, money,
interviews, public speaking, CPR, and other icky things (your mileage
may vary) we might have to encounter. We can make more room for
happiness when it's easier to wade through that crap. This is why I
think children should be taught a good amount of self discipline and
self analysis early. Essentially they should learn how to follow
instructions, develop strategies, and double-check their work. How to
teach it, I don't know. Some board games might help. :)
:-j
