As a homeschooler of six children, I have been frustrated by the commerical products available. Having examined literally dozens of curricula and educational methods, I have found nearly all to have serious flaws in one area or another. Typical concerns:
• too much parental time is required for material organization and/or teaching
• curricula are designed for classroom-style teaching, and are thus difficult to use with independent learning methods
• curricula are designed for ease of learning, not mastery of material, and lack academic rigor
• little or no review from year to year to ensure the original material was fully imbibed
However, many curricula had strong points as well. Through trial and error, I have worked to fuse the best parts of different methods together, and thus avoid the problems shown above. This resulted in an independent, student-led curriculum that focuses on the "core" of education (reading, writing, and mathematics). The purpose of this website is to document and explain this method.
Learning the educational core begins with basic tools: reading, writing, and memorizing math facts. This first stage starts around three years old when learning letters and numbers, and finishes up around age six to seven when the child can read and has memorized the math facts. Although this first stage must be directed by a teacher, it is important the teacher encourage the student to do as much independent work as their age allows. This is in preparation for the next step: the student taking full responsibility for his own education, and this transition should be as seamless as possible.
Once a student can read, the first stage is over. The student begins to educate himself. Every day he reads, writes, learns vocabulary, and does mathematics. All specific subjects (history, science, etc.) are learned during the reading time. The schedule is to study half-days, six days per week, and roughly fifty weeks a year for ten years (typically ages 6-16). This invested time is not excessive; in fact, it is comparable to most schools today.
Where is this program different? The focus. Students will have the fundamentals not just learned, but mastered. They should thus be working towards a perfect score on the SAT, as this test is merely a metric of how well a student knows the educational core. Students will also read a modest amount of the Great Books, where they receive an introduction to specific subjects (geography, science, history, etc.). Other desired academic skills requiring direct training (music, foreign language, typing, etc.) may be learned in the afternoon, but are much lower priority. The core remains the focus until the university years.
Out of the many books and curricula that have influenced the design of the "core" method, three stand out and are worthy of mention:
Robinson Curriculum (uses Great Books philosophy)
A Thomas Jefferson Education (unschooling/Great Books)
The Well-Trained Mind (classical approach)
I have found serious problems with every one of these methods, yet the good generally outweighs the bad. The method I use most closely resembles the Robinson Curriculum, yet I do not use or recommend the Robinson materials, which have serious problems.
Soon, I will post a complete review of these curricula/methods, and explain where I have found weaknesses and strengths in each.
History
Less is More Philosophy
We all dream of hitting home runs. But hitting singles, day after day, is what reliably puts the batter on base to win the game. In the same way, only a planned, steady, and rigorous focus on the basics of education develops the skills needed to excel in the university years. It's not always fun. It's not always easy. But there are no shortcuts.
The reason educators and parents generally deny this reality is simple. First, we do not wish to commit to the day-to-day effort that learning the fundamentals require. Awash in new educational theories, it seems reasonable that some fresh method will make learning easy and always fun. Of course, this is wishful thinking. Students must do the hard work of educating themselves, and nobody can do it for them. In the words of Mortimer J. Adler, "Every invitation to learning can promise pleasure only as the result of pain." Once the student and teacher accept that learning is hard work, it becomes transparent that most newfangled educational methods are created in a futile attempt to pretend otherwise. Only through this realization do we become willing to buckle down and master the less-than-exciting educational core.
Second, we tend to overwhelm students with too much material out of fear of falling behind, and neglect the core by default. In our rush to add new subjects and "advance," the basics must give way. World history? Foreign Languages? Geography? Ancient History? Latin? More is not necessarily better; in fact, more is usually worse and leads to burnout. The cold, hard truth is that there is a limited window of time for effective schooling, and students cannot learn everything. We must choose.
It is crucial that the very narrow window of childhood be available for mastering the basics, and yet leave considerable free time for creative play, independent thought, and day-to-day living. Many cannot accept this, as they believe it is important to "keep up" with the standard subjects. However, this fear of falling behind due to focusing on the basics is quite misplaced, as the failure to learn the core well is what makes every subsequent subject more difficult. The solution is therefore obvious: we should focus on other subjects only after the student has complete command of the core. In reality, students will pick up an enormous amount of these subjects from their daily reading, with much better retention. Meanwhile, the children busy memorizing names, dates, and places will have little perspective on what they are learning and it is quickly forgotten.
If you doubt the efficacy of mastering the educational basics at the expense of other subjects, ask a university professor what type of student will do better in his class: one who already knows much of the material to be taught, or one who is an effective reader, a skilled wordsmith, and wields a formidable vocabulary? He will tell you that the latter student has the edge every time. Why? Because the value of specific knowledge is quite limited here; everything the student needs to ace the class will be taught in the class. Professors know from hard experience that the majority of their students (even at the Ivy level!) lack the superior reading, writing, and communication skills they need to reach their potential at advanced levels.
The same situation applies to science. Mathematics is the irreplaceable language of science, and yet few students become fluent in this powerful language. Eventually, however, they find themselves confronting calculus or physics without the necessary language skills because they have ignored the core over their younger years, focusing instead on fun experiments and flashy science texts. These students think they know science, yet quickly become confused and dejected when encountering real mathematical science because they do not know the language, much like some tourist lost and alone in a foreign country. The unpleasant reality is that learning mathematics, as in learning any language, takes a lot of time and commitment, and this is why if it is not learned thoroughly in the younger years it typically will not be learned at all.
Unfortunately, parents and schools struggle against these truths. Students are placed on the education "conveyor belt" and continuously compared to other children. They move forward based on grade level, not subject mastery. This relentless structure makes the core nearly impossible to absorb and retain at young ages. Advanced children are especially at risk. Encouraged to move on to new subjects and pose as young geniuses (usually to bolster their teacher's ego!) they are rarely required to learn their core well. Hey, they are ahead, right?
Non-mathematical science, cool experiments, and fun projects receive all the attention, yet even if not forgotten will add little value-added material to the student's future. However, the core will be used and reused forever and thus remains invaluable. It is a priceless investment that will turn all later subjects to gold. Yet the majority want it all now, and swing for the home run over and over. And score less and less as the game progresses.
How does it work?
Mastering the Core of educational skill sets (communication and mathematics) takes roughly 10 years for an average student. The typical ages are from 6-16, but it is never too late to learn the basics!
The best schedule I have found is half-days, six days a week and roughly fifty weeks a year. This reallocation of time is comparable to a typical school (180 "full" days a year) yet has the advantage of ample free time during the day for exploring personal interests (music, play, and sports) while giving day-by-day consistency that typical schooling lacks.
After ten years, the student should be within striking distance of a perfect score on the SAT and ready to enter college as an elite, independent student, ready to tackle any subject.
The subjects to be taught can be divided into two basic skill sets: English and Math (which are simply communication and logical reasoning). The teaching methods change based on maturity and are divided into the teaching years and the independent years.
Teaching Years: Age: 4 - 6
Math (1/2 hr):
1) learn numbers (flash cards)
2) memorize math facts 0-12 (flash cards)
English (1/2 hr):
1) learn letters (flash cards)
2) phonics reading (primer)
3) penmanship (workbook)
4) reading (simple books)
During this stage, the teacher monitors and guides the student. However, the student always holds the flash cards and is slowly given more autonomy.
The Self-Learning Years: age 6-16
Math:
1) review previously memorized math facts (flash cards) for a few minutes every day
2) math (2 hr), one half lesson per day, moving up to one lesson per day around age 8
English:
1) writing (1 hr)
• age 6-8, copy work and spelling
• age 9-10, two essays each week
• age 11-16, one essay each day
2) vocabulary (1/2 hr), flash cards
3) reading (2 hr) classic literature with some daily oral reading
Key points:
• work without help to build justified self-confidence and create independent study habits for life
• history, science, geography, grammar, etc. are "unschooled" through reading classic literature
• skills such as typing, music, theater, or foreign language may be learned separately as desired
Why is the SAT so important?
1) Universities have only one reason for being: to get people to pay them money. They do this via tuition or alumni loyalty. “Education” simply has nothing to do with the game; to learn something for real, study the material on your own.
2) As the world moves into the information age, it becomes more divided between haves and have-nots (that is, the cognitive elite and others) than ever before. Thus this elite has more filthy lucre than they know what to do with, and the “alma mater” factor is larger than ever. Colleges therefore have a serious financial need to grab people who will be successful and hopefully give them lots of money later. It’s their bank, and it's working great for them. In fact, many schools now have acquired so much raw cash going this route they can make tuition nearly free. This is the way of the future.
3) Schools must keep this “alma mater” bank paying out at all costs. So they seek two very different kinds of people: those with the powerful social connections needed to stay rich and powerful (think George Bush), and those with the top 5% of brains who will make the next pile in the information age (think Bill Gates). There are simply not that many people who are “connected” (and most are already spoken for), so now the big fight is over the top brains (who at the very least will offset the low scores of the dumb wealthy who must be accepted in anticipation of future alumni payouts).
4) Summary: the SAT still remains the very best legal way of finding brains in the worldwide talent pool. Activities and GPA? Not so much. Heck, the fastest way to examine a school’s quality is just to look at incoming SAT/GRE scores. For these reasons, the SAT is becoming the new worldwide ISO 9000 standard, and it’s only going to get more important in the future
