domingo, 28 de septiembre de 2014

Mates en una familia Unschooler por Linda Wyatt.

Esto es de la página de Sandra Dodd.

So here is another update, from Sept 2014

My kids are now 27, 24, and 21.

The oldest, Simon, who got excited about trig on that day all those years ago, now works as a paraprofessional math and science tutor at the local community college.

He decided he wanted to take some college classes at some point ( I don't recall exactly when) and he went and took the GED exam and the SATs cold, without any preparation or studying, just to see what was on them and how he would do. I didn't know about this until afterwards; he didn't ask for my help. He did extremely well on both.

He started classes at the community college, and I found his approach to that to be very interesting. First, he took a bunch of placement tests. Then, even though he "placed out" of some of the classes, he chose to take them anyway, because he was curious about how they would be taught, not having any experience of being in classes like that before. He quickly became very popular with all the professors, because he actively participated in class, asked lots of questions, and was more interested in the material than in the "social life" there.

Then he found that he was interested in more things than could fit into a normal class schedule, since several times, things he wanted to do met at the same time. He went and talked to the various professors, and was given permission to take simultaneous classes, going to each half the time. I had never heard of someone doing this before.

He took nearly every math class offered at the college, including a very interesting class designed for prospective public school teachers, about how to teach math. Interesting both because some of it was potentially useful (like how to figure out what misconception someone is having based on precisely WHAT "wrong answer" they give, sort of a "backwards engineering" concept) and some of it was horrible (relying on timed drills, class management, etc).

He also took advantage of the wide variety of opportunities, including a biology class that included a trip to Costa Rica, some hiking, backpacking and canoeing classes, and whatever he felt like doing for fun. He found some excellent teachers (who are now friends). He met his now-serious girlfriend in a philosophy class because she was one of the other people there who was willing to argue.

He didn't feel constrained to taking what the college "required" for a degree, and simply took classes he liked. He ended up with enough of the right distribution of credits that they gave him a diploma, but it wasn't a typical program or time frame, neither of which was important to him.

He was recruited by the tutoring center, and became first a peer tutor (while still a student), and then was hired as a paraprofessional after he graduated. He really likes working with the remedial students, because they come to him with so much fear of the "hard" stuff, of math and science, and he really enjoys helping them come to a better understanding so they can let go of that fear. His goal in working with them is understanding the concepts, rather than just passing tests. He tutors for all of the math and science classes the college offers, as well as various computer classes and a few odds and ends. Some of the things he tutors are things he has never taken a class for, but learned on his own. He also helps train the peer tutors. What started as getting together to help a friend with her calculus homework, became a career.

My middle child, Tim, is a musician, writer, photographer, and deep thinker. His interest in math has never been in a written form, math-for-the-fun-of-math, that his brother and I enjoy. It is an intrinsic part of everything he does. He has occasionally had some concerns that maybe he "should" know more math than he thinks he does, but whenever we've sat down and looked at it, he hasn't ever had any trouble doing whatever he's needed to do. It's a funny thing, in a way, how often kids who never go to school sometimes feel pressured by cultural things, just like many unschooling parents do, but in our experience, it has been only that: a culturally induced concern that turns out not to be validated.

Tim has not ever taken an academic class in anything. At all. He has no way to compare his experience learning without any formal teaching, to learning with it, because he has only ever experienced learning on his own, except for swordsmanship. And even that, though it is formally presented, is really learned through his own practice. I think he may take some classes, somewhere, at some point, which would ease his mind about the whole thing, but so far, he has been busy doing other things.

My daughter, Sarah, HAS had an experience that allows her to compare. Her first academic class experiences came in the form of firefighter training, and then in emergency medical training. She had no trouble with either, being at the top of her classes. Then she decided to take a higher level medical class, in a college setting. One involving a lot of anatomy and physiology, biology, chemistry and math- none of which she had ever specifically studied, formally or otherwise.

She was a little apprehensive, being the youngest in the class, with the least experience.
She rocked it.

She was one of the few people to do well on both written tests and practical skills.
What she discovered was, I believe, very valuable to her.

She expected everyone else in the class to have an easier time, since they HAD taken math, chemistry, biology, etc, in school. All of them had graduated high school, some had college degrees, and all had more medical experience.

But what she saw was that a) they largely had really negative attitudes about both the materials and about testing, neither of which she shared, and b) their performance did not indicate ANY "advantage" from having taken and passed all those classes in school. They didn't remember any of it, and experienced significant stress about all of it. She, on the other hand, really wanted to understand it, and also found that she HAD learned a lot of it, over the years, as part of other interests.

Once she realized that, she was no longer apprehensive at all, and really enjoyed the class. She is now planning to go to nursing school.

To summarize, all three have had no trouble whatsoever with math throughout their lives so far. 
Two have found considerable advantages in not having had a standard public school experience of math.

And all three still have very different interests. :-)

Linda Wyatt, September 2014

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