The self-propelled advantage- The parents guide to raising independant, motivated kids who learn with excellence by Joanne Calderwood.
OK so this one is tricky to review. Its one of those books you will love or potentially you might not like some of her ideas so much you cant finish reading it. Read it with an open mind and I can garentee you will take something away from it. I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. it made me think and self assess our situation. It made me determine my reasons for why i do schooling the way I do. Overall it was worth much much more than the $7 I paid for it.
Recommended for anyone whos kids dont respect them as much as they would like them too, anyone homeschooling or planning to, anyone who wants their kids to know why they are given afterschooling work and anyone who wants their kids to stop whining about their after schooling work.
So whats in the book?
It starts with a background information section on how her children got to college. Its pretty impressive. One got 100% on his entrace tests and two actually have enough scholarship money to run at a profit! At the time of writing not all of her kids have finished high school, but the ones that have all got scholarships.
It follows with a discussion about her as a teacher in both public and private schools.
Then there is the Bicycle Analogy. This is a big part of the books point. There are three parts to a functioning bike. Front wheel, back wheel and rider. She discribes the front wheel as SELF LEARNING. It is letting go and letting our children do things for themselves
a great quote
“micromanaged students lack motivation and dont need to take responsibility for themselves because they know that someone else will take responsibility for them”
I like the idea of not micromanaging my children! It takes away the role of teacher and gives us the role of educational coach. I should point out here that her younger children still get lots of teaching time until the point where they can read independantly and thus work independantly. Self checking is part of her system too.
The back wheel of the bicyle is MASTERY. phew she believes all children should work to mastery. (you know i didnt believe that to be true just a year ago! boy how things have changed!) children should be given the time they need to work to mastery. If they get it in 10 minutes great if it takes 3 weeks so be it. if they are too young and you need to come back to it next year thats fine too. Quote
“mastery equals excellence”
sure does! 
She discusses the likelihood of obtaining mastery in the different school settings. obviouslty home schooling wins out there!
“Self learning and Mastery make up the framework for educational success.”
The third part to the bike analogy is SELF MASTERY this is the rider. She discusses teaching children self mastery from very young. they grow up with high expectations for behavious as one way to teach self mastery. This section will make you think. :yes: modelling good behavoiours ourselves, teaching them to work diligently, attitude, respect and morals are all discussed.
The chapter ends with some self reflection questions. As do most of the chapters.
The next chapter is about motivation. its a bit all over the place but has some useful ideas. Not enough concrete ideas to take away and impliment for my liking though. (possiblt they will come later)
Chapter 3 is a comparison between public, private and homeschooling options. If you want to home school and need convincing this is the book for you. She is completly biased and makes good points for that basis.
I havnt finished the book yet. I wanted to get this down before I forgot as the book doesnt seem to follow a logical progression to me. Although I can see there is one if you look at the index… :wacko: I can see there is lots more in this book. I look forwad to reading the rest but wanted to share a little story with you all now :biggrin:
This morning I started implimenting some ideas from the book. :yes: I liked her ideas in motivation, one of which was to give your kids a reason to learn. An intrinsic reason is preferable. Now my oldest is doing Saxon somedays it is a total struggle to ge ther to do it. SO today I sat with her and we discussed why she is doing this extra work. I mentioned that at the rate she is moving through it plus just a little bit more effort on her part she will be finished high school math before she even starts high school. She already knows she has finished English to a high school level so I thought this would gel with her. Well it totally backfired on me! I said “how would you like to finish high school early?” her reply “no way I love school!” :ohmy: strait into damage control! “how would you like to be able to choose subjects you want to do rather than do math? Would you like to start a university degree while you are still at school, spending half the day at school and half the day doing uni?” “why? I like school, will I like Uni?”
( this conversation is going great hey! 
)
OK change tactic. what do you want to be when you grow up? I usually get a firm answer from her but today not so much. She has been talking alot about living on a farm lately so I capitalised on the interest in agriculture 
OK so imagine its grade 10 and your friends are heading off to a late in the day math class on fractions (which she is pretty good at :yes: ) you already know all the answers so instead you get to go and spend the afternoon at a horse farm leaning how to insaminate a prime mare, fitting in a riding lesson as well before school is over! Or you could go to the math class if you want to
OK finally I got through to her! doing saxon NOW gives you extra choices LATER. This she could understand! Interestingly she has already discovered that her saxon is making her classroom math much easier. but that in itself wasnt enough for her. :wacko:
My next comment was the icing on the cake for her. " you know if you get 3 years ahead of your friends in math you will pass all the tests without doing the classroon work. then mummy can go to your teachers and say “hey Natalya is pertty bored with the math work you give her so I am going to send her to school with her Saxon grade X book to work through independantly during math time” then i told Natalya she wouldnt have to do SAxon at home if she had already done it at school :biggrin:
We discussed home schooling in future too. She is pretty keen to try this, but isnt prepared to leave her friends just yet.
I will finish the book and add to the review. :yes: I am hoping the second half has more practical applications I can use.
