How American Homeschoolers Measure Up

Interesting stats about Homeschooling in America from TopMastersInEducation.com...

TopMastersInEducation.com

New Year's Resolution: Play More!

My boys playing with their cousins

Happy New Year, Everyone!!  I have high hopes for 2013 to be another full year of laughing, loving, living, and lots of meaningful learning!  If you're looking for a New Year's resolution for your home school maybe you could adopt this one:  Play More!!

I know we often think of play and work as being opposites, and for adults they often are.  For kids, however, they go hand in hand.  Consider these famous quotes:

"Play is the work of the child." ~Maria Montessori

"Play is a child's work." ~Jean Piaget

Not only do children need to learn to play and play to learn, but they also need breaks while they are learning.  I don't mean just physical exercise like an organized sport or activity.  I also don't mean rests such as laying on the couch reading, or watching a show, or video game.  I'm talking about free imaginative play time where they get to call the shots and no one is dictating to them what they should do or think.  These are the times when their brains can process what they have learned and assimilate knowledge on their own terms.

For us, play breaks take place amongst toys like blocks, action figures, trains, and stuffed animals.  Or else we go outside on the play structure, play ground, or other natural setting.  When my boys play, I find that they will often reenact History lessons, re-create literature stories, or coincidentally discover real life applications from their Math or Art lessons.  This is where there learning is cemented into their brains.

I came across this Time article today:  Yay For Recess that I think is a perfect reminder and support for teachers and parents everywhere to let our New Years resolutions to be more breaks and play time for our kids.

This year our motto will be:  "Learn Hard.  Play Hard."

When Teachers Cheat, Students Fail

You don't fatten a pig by weighing it.

I don't know much about fattening and weighing pigs, but this old adage does seem to make a lot of sense.  If you want a pig to tip the scales then you focus on the amount and quality of the food you feed it.  Likewise, if you want students to score high on tests you need to focus on the amount and quality of their instruction.  


What happens when we focus on the end result rather than the process of getting there?  The No Child Left Behind Act has given us the lab experiment required to answer this question.  The conclusion:  people cheat.  Cheating is such a big issue that our government now needs to "host a symposium on cheating and publish "best practices" recommendations on how to prevent, detect and respond to cheating in schools."  Click here for the full article.  Guess what...  It's not the students who are cheating, it's the teachers!

You will never hear me claim that I have the answers to all our educational problems today, because I don't.  But, I do know that focusing on standardized testing is not the solution.  Testing is not bad, just as using a scale to weigh a pig is not a bad thing.  It's a helpful tool.  But we need to treat testing as a tool.  It is not a replacement for good instruction.

My message to parents:  Get involved!  Don't just sit around and wait for the test scores.  Take a look at the process.  Find out what is really happening in your child's classroom.  Check often for comprehension and mastery.  You and your children's teachers are allies.  You should both have the same goal.  Work with them and do whatever it takes to ensure your child is getting the quality and amount of education he or she needs.  And be aware that test scores never give the full picture.  Especially when the test has been doctored.