That lecture makes me want to create a degree for myself. Unfortunately, I don’t think any college offers “Early Learning” as a major. I think this forum, and all the books I read because of it, are about equivalent.
I do think it’s a great idea. If you have a motivated teenager and an agreeable college that transfers credits/tests out of classes without too muh trouble, between AP/CLEP and online learning, you might be able to get a degree with only paying tuition for a year or so. Sounds great to me!
The TED talk was great. Honestly, I have been trying to put together a computer science path for myself. Honestly, I have seen so many young teens explore the world of computer science and programming with absolutely no help other than google. I have every intention of making computer science as important as math and reading in the development of my children. You can take this knowledge and apply it to any subject or degree of your choice. It doesn’t matter what you choose, everything is impacted and improved upon through computer programming.
I seems to me there are certain degrees and subjects where special environments are necessary for understanding and obtaining special knowledge. It also seems to me that certain degrees can be mastered independently like math, computer programming and even business. Degrees that do offer special knowledge where a special and not easily accessible environment are vital to understanding and obtaining the special knowledge are in the medical field, engineering, physics, psychology, music and etc. This is where a university will play its role in the future. I think concepts like philosophy will take a path of group learning in a forum environment rather than a university degree.
What is extraordinary is that there is a self-learning movement in the post college world that is circling the global thanks to the free resources flowing freely through the Internet. I am very optimistic about the future and I think we will find people choosing and benefiting from alternative learning environments thanks to the overbearing cost of the university environment.
Enjoyed the video. Interesting, but a few months ago I started watching poker videos at 1.3x whenever possible. I figured that I typically pause the tape when I’m copiously taking notes and rewind when I have to, but the rest of the time I’m moving through the content faster. I’d guess a lecture would be really simple to 1.5x (poker vids tend to pile a lot of action at once). I felt like what took me so long to figure that out when this guy is doing his whole coursework that way
It remains to be seen what will happen with the internet learning, but in today’s environment with free course content and Khan, there’s really no excuse to be ignorant at the age of 18… IMHO
Hey can you watch fast speed on a tablet? I have never actually used the 1.5 x speed for anything but I am thinking it would be just perfect for me! I get bored watching most things as they go to slow for my brain. Speed would be awesome!
Early childhood education would be the closest degree to EL. It’s a teaching degree. Some subjects would be useless ( politics!) but others could be added to counter them ( like Heath and well being or physical developmental milestones) all the early childhood math subjects would be great as well as any course showing teaching reading.
Haha. Funny about the faster speeds. I used to borrow The Teaching company lectures from the library and the content was great but they are excruciatingly slow. So I used to speed them up with the VCR.
I too would be interested in a way to speed up videos from places like YouTube on the ipad.
Thanks Tamsyn for the video. It answered my question of why self-educated children do so well in school. By removing the middleman (the teacher), they get in touch with the books themselves, and are far able to glean from them than students spoonfed with knowledge. Further, they are able to move at an accelerated pace because they are not limited by the availability and capacity of their teacher. In the book ``The Self-Propelled Advantage’’, Joanne Calderwood says the same thing too. It was interesting, though, to watch a video confirming these insights.
For self-education, my target will be to have/ provide books that lend themselves to self-education because not all books do that (some books are very teacher-intensive). One would need books/resources that will explain the material as well as the teacher.
I don’t have a tablet, so I’m unfamiliar with what it can and can’t do. To view something (or listen to something) at a faster speed, you need a player that can do it. Streaming isn’t likely to have this function, so you have to download or somehow have the file in hand. I’ve been using VLC ever since another poker player told me about it quite some time ago.
For youtube videos, you could use a capture website to download the file, or pull it from your cache (but I can’t always do this because I’m not all that great at computers ha ha) and then watch it at your own speed. I would guess that you could do this on a tablet.
Thanks Pokerdad. I will research this speed thing. I could really use this but I don’t enjoy siting in front of the laptop nearly as much as the iPad. Oh and as the the computer problem, never mind. Pokercub will be fluent in computers within a few months, they learn so fast he can teach you all you need to know! lol
Nee thanks for the links. I have a day off to search them tomorrow! Very interested in this whole idea. Intriguing :yes:
In the book ``The Self-Propelled Advantage’', Joanne Calderwood (urthemom.com) made a statement that was intriguing. Here is how it goes:
[size=11pt][b]Home Educated Students and the SATs [/b]
Remember Dr Fischgrund's statement about home education not being an advantage in SAT performance. Then there was the statistic that stated that less than 1 percent of perfect score students are home educated. Those were the only two sentences on home education in the entire book. Of course those sentences ate me. Well, I vowed not to sleep until I got an explanation from the author about his outrageous comment. Okay, maybe I didn't literally lose sleep over it, but I definitely couldn't accept his statement without an explanation, so I did a search on the internet for the author. I ended up contacting Dr Fischgrund by email and asking if he had time to go over some material from his book with me. I told him up front that I am a home-educating parent, formerly a professional educator. That didn't seem to scare him, so he gave me his phone number and set up a time to talk. Talk we did! It was an interesting hour-long exchanges of ideas and thoughts, and I was very grateful that he took the time to discuss not only his book, but also educational theory with me.
In our discussion, I found out why it is that Dr Fischgrund feels that home education is a stumbling block to raising high achievers who score brilliantly on the SAT - and I strongly concur with his explanation. Would you like to know the reason why home education may actually be a hindrance to raising perfect scorers? Hint: he used the words ``helicopter parents’’ in his explanation. His experience with home-educating parents has indicated to him that home-educating moms, especially, tend to hover over their students, helping them way too much and not forcing them to work hard and get out of their comfort zones. Sound familiar? He and I talked about the micromanagement factor and how harmful it can be to the motivation of middle and high school kids. ……
I have met these parents! As a teacher I can spot the children of these parents even in kindergarten! Scary. It’s probably true. There is a fine line between being involved in your child’s education and controlling it. The more of this book I read the more I believe in stepping back. Don’t get me wrong I will still go in to bat for my kids at school, but they won’t get an excuse from me if they don’t do their homework anymore!
Okay, this conversation is like an ANSWER TO PRAYER! I am at the crossroads of what you are all discussing. I loved the books No Regrets. It reminded me of a more relaxed way of how I educated my children. My oldest is 7 saps up information like a sponge and he never knew he was being taught. Most of his schooling happened on the trampoline. And now went to school for the first time. Instead of being placed in 1st grade, he was placed in 4th. I wanted to homeschool him but for the “socialization” reason my husband would not have anything to do with it. I managed to find a hybrid school and he goes to school 3 days a week. It is a 100 kid private school in a well to do neighborhood so I thought my boy would be in a protected bubble. Entrance exams are written and kids are put into a grade depending on their skill set. Unfortunately, it works the other way around too. Now my son is in math class with 12 yr olds. It has brought the question to mind. What am I doing?? Stimulating him at his every whim has now created a kid that is academically advanced but I don’t want him in University at age 12. UNLESS he is purely homeschooled. I feel like now I have created the dilemma of hurry up and wait. So here I sit, trying to navigate school systems to find a gifted program (which by the way doesn’t exist in CA as we have no budget). Confused - YES. ANY ANY insight would be so appreciated!
I will likely start a new thread sometime soon about this, but I don’t think you ought to view through a “hurry up and wait” lens.
If you step back a few paces and look at the bigger picture of what you’re trying to achieve as a parent, and what you want for education, you might notice that school is a major hindrance to your goals and not necessarily a means to an end. I’m no longer of the opinion (at all) that socialization is a valid excuse for subjecting any child to the US school system as constructed - and this goes double for an EL kid or gifted kid. There is so much more we can achieve - so much greater depth and breadth of life that to put a child into a Procrustean environment just seems… well, silly. But, it does sound like the school your boy is going to is anything like the typical, so perhaps all is well - I’m just saying school itself may not be all you think it is.
Gosh I want my kids to go to that school! 3 days a week, ability based grade level academics and I still have 4 days a week with them to teach them everything I want them to learn! Sounds perfect to me.
100 kids is a nice little bubble but of course it depends on those 100 kids. My kids have a nice little bubble with 600 kids ( grades P-12) they don’t have much in the way of negative influences. All the kids are lovely! The only issue I have socially is that they are being raised at school in a much more Christian way than I would accept if they were home schooled. It’s a very Christian school, no pretending.
A few months back I considered homeschooling for primary and sending them out to school for high school, now I am on the back flip. I would rather send them to school for the early years 1-3 and get them back in time to homeschool during high school! (7-12)!!!
I agree Mandabplus3 (last time we connected you only had 1). Highschool is where you want to do the homeschooling. Honestly Pokerdad, I believe in everything you say but it isn’t worth me sacrificing my marriage. So I chose my battles. Still, I battle with the hurry up and wait syndrome. That is why, if there is anyone out there that has navigated the American school system with a kid functioning 3 yrs above his grade level, I would love to hear from you. In a perfect world, I would homeschool all the way and put him in college for highschool ap classs. Has anyone done that? Does it help to get into Ivy league universities? I know it sounds crazy to be asking questions like this with a 7 yr old. But just wondering…
I got this video today in my email box from Collegeplus. It is titled ``15 year old aspiring doctor earned 21 college credit through dual credit program’'.
The thing that caught my attention was when he starting talking about breaking the bigger goal of being a doctor into smaller steps. Those smaller steps were yet broken into other smaller steps. Monthly goals are set based on those steps, weekly goals follow and even daily goals are set, all to reach the bigger goal of becoming a doctor. It reminded me of what I read in Joanne Calderwood’s (urthemom.com) book : ``The Self Propelled Advantage.‘’
And you don’t have to have a kindle to download the book. Simply download the amazon kindle app here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_ac?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200388510. And presto, you’ll be able to read kindle books on your computer. The Amazon promo on ``Self Propelled Advantage’’ will end on the 27th of May. I’m not sure if the promo sale applies to those in the UK . I’m in UK, and could not find any $1.99 price tag on the book . Maybe it applies to the US and other countries only.
Thats a great idea. I read a homeschooling book about the idea of deciding where you wanted to be at the end and working backwards from there. Basically it means taking what you want to learn and breaking it up into years, months, weeks and days worth of work. Simple and obvious but I think it would really give direction to the big goals like college or university.
I like the idea of having a mentor for your kids study. I imagine that would be very useful and supportive for them when mum is just being too pushy or is too busy to do it all. I might see if there is that option here for early entrants.
We don’t have college prep. Bt any studies relevant to the course you enrol in are given credits ( advanced standing we call it) but only courses from TAFE or other university’s. I still haven’t figured out if skipping high school ( year 11-12 higher school certificate) is completely feasible here. It looks like it just won’t matter about the high school qualifications at all if you become enrolled in university subjects with no prerequisites. The drama would be if your child flaked and ended up pulling out before graduation. As then they would technically have NO school education certificates at all. You would need to be sure of the path to walk it. :yes:
I think this forum, and all the books I read because of it, are about equivalent.
he can teach you all you need to know! lol
. Maybe it applies to the US and other countries only.