I can't create the level of practice Christopher needs, and I can't get it from Saxon 8/7 or edhelper.com (though edhelper is a terrific site).

Actually, I probably could create the level of practice Christopher needs, but I haven't had 50 years' experience doing it, as Kumon has. The Kumon worksheets have been used & revised & used again & revised again. For years.

Plus I'm sick of the battles. We had a Total Household Meltdown two nights ago—a total household meltdown involving triangulation, I might add—that left me hopping mad yesterday, and simmering mad today.

That's not good.

reactive teaching redux

Early on, working with Christopher, it was clear to me I needed to be teaching my own curriculum, separate from the school's.

I needed not to be doing what Carolyn calls reactive teaching.

When Christopher & I were working our way through Saxon 6/5, I was overseeing & teaching a coherent curriculum. I gave tests after each 10 lessons, and I could see whether he had learned the concepts or not. I had some means of assessing where he was.

This year we don't exactly have time to do Saxon 8/7 along with Prentice Hall Pre-Algebra (or maybe Saxon-with-Prentice-Hall just doesn't seem appealing enough to devote the time to it. I'm not sure.) So I'm doing reactive teaching, and I'm not doing it very well.

I guess the problem boils down to efficiency. Efficiency and child psychology.

I'm 'dorking around in the dark' here, writing up Distributive Property Worksheets, having Christopher rehearse the definitions of the properties, etc....and who knows if I'm doing enough of this, too much, or too little?

Plus every day is another battle, because Christopher loathes surprises. In this realm, he is One with his autistic brothers: He Does Not Like Change. (As a matter of fact, it's entirely possible both Jimmy & Andrew are more flexible when it comes to change, surprise, & transitions than Christopher.)

Well, seeing as how I've never 'afterschooled' the subject of pre-algebra in my life, everything I write up for him is hideously new & unprecedented, by definition. It is a surprise. It is change. It is not what he expected.

Kumon is going to be repetition to the max, and that's what we need.

I take it back

I'm still going to be working on the Prentice-Hall book with Christopher, helping with homework—AND I'm going to be supplementing with RUSSIAN MATH, which I've already begun. (Subject for another post.)

I'll probably do a decent job of this.

I'm just not confident Christopher is going to learn math without a serious, coherent, separate, supplementary curriculum. Providing a separate, coherent curriculum last year made all the difference.

He needs the same thing this year, too.

more on Oakley's paper t/k

Back to main page.

Comments

"A more useful, if longer term, approach is to implement change from the bottom (elementary school level) up, rather than middle or high school, where ultimate change is so strongly desired."

Duh!!! Why is this such a strange or new concept for some people? I guess some think that they are doing a fine job in the lower grades and that the problem is with the upper schools or the kids or parents. After 5 years of study, I am still astounded by their lack of applied brain cells.

"The authors have introduced a supplemental program..."

Supplemental? I can just imagine how this will mesh with their existing math programs. Gee, we can't get rid of the horribly bad existing math curricula, so we will have to supplement it. This is the political answer to all math curricula complaints. We will supplement. Don't get me wrong. If they have to supplement, then Kumon is a good choice. I expect that when these kids get to their regular math class in school, the teachers will quickly figure out that they have to change the curriculum. Maybe that is the political strategy. The supplement is better than the actual curriculum. Perhaps they can then pick one that doesn't have to be SUPPLEMENTED!!!

I am definately getting more cranky!

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

By-the-way, the only way I can read the small print is to copy and paste it into Notepad.

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

"The Kumon methodology outlined in this paper provides an ideal parallel path that allows underachieving children in mathematics to catch up to the level at which they should be working."

Parallel? What happens when all of these kids begin to surpass their "normal" level? I can imagine that some schools might use it ONLY as a remedial tool. Once you catch up to the "normal" level, Kumon stops.

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

"Indeed, the method by which Kumon is taught—through the use of thousands of carefully structured, logically connected worksheets—represents an excellent individualized supplement to standard textbooks."

Supplement? To what? To nothing? Does this mean that the regular class can get even more fuzzy and accomplish less? Kumon might be a good supplement to something else, but that something else is not found in the public school classroom.

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

A more useful, if longer term, approach is to implement change from the bottom (elementary school level) up, rather than middle or high school, where ultimate change is so strongly desired

Isn't that what you always say?

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

What is the small print?

Is it the 'code' print I've been using?

I'll stop using it, if so.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

It looks big on my browser.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

"I can't create the level of practice Christopher needs, and I can't get it from Saxon 8/7 or edhelper.com (though edhelper is a terrific site)."

The schools can't either. Just 20 minutes a day. That is all I ask from our school. What he gets is 45-60 minutes a day of Everyday Math. When my son gets home, after after-school sports or his piano lesson, after commuting time, after doing his regular homework, after eating supper, after piano practice, there is NO TIME left. I have the Singapore Math books sitting on the table, but I can't bring myself to require 20 minutes more.

I can do what Kumon does, but I would prefer to tell our school that I will handle his math education. He will bring in the Singapore Math books and do the work during regular math class. I will then test him and give him homework.

I often wonder exactly what goes on at school. I think I could do a better job and the school day would be over at noon.

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

"What is the small print?"

It looks like the text you cut and paste from elsewhere. Maybe it's a setting on my computer. My font settings seem to have changed lately.

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

'A more useful, if longer term, approach is to implement change from the bottom (elementary school level) up, rather than middle or high school, where ultimate change is so strongly desired "

"Isn't that what you always say?"

That is what they said. I said "Duh!"

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

I've lucked out with my LD son. Saxon 6/5 is absolutely perfect for him right now for all the reasons we've discussed. I've consistently worked with him at the exact same time every night and between that and Mr. Saxon, I've had less trouble with him than I have had in the past. The tightness of the transitions from one subject to another has made me a true believer in this thing called coherence. It seems as those no one is paying attention to how critical that is for kids.

Catherine, I do remember a home schooler friend telling me that she had a lot of trouble from the kids the first year and then they just gave up. She said other home schoolers told her the same thing, that it took a bit for the kids to realize that this wasn't going away, but then they were fine. Although maybe Kumon might give you a break from all of the planning (and hey, you could just blame it on Kumon if he gives you trouble.)

-- SusanS - 20 Oct 2005

"I said 'Duh!'"

That's what you always say. 8-)

On text size:

In Internet Explorer, you can go to View > Text Size and pick a larger size. On Firefox, you can press Ctrl-+ for the same effect.

BTW, I find the default size a bit small too.

-- DougSundseth - 20 Oct 2005

I have the same issues as SteveH.

I think Kumon is a great supplemental math program, but it is still only a supplemental math program. It doesn't solve the underlying problem, i.e., the base math curricula aren't working. (Plus the supplementing takes up valuable student time.)

I've been re-reading the project Follow Through results. Especially see this re-analysis of the data.

It's not only that Engelmann's Direct Instruction Curriculum thoroughly trounced both the control group and all the other experimental curricula, the truly bad part is that most of the other experimental curricula (including dicovery learning, whole language, constructivist math) significantly underperformed the control group.

Now take a look at the amazing gains made by one inner city Baltimore school using a properly implemented and supported DI program. These gains seem to be at least as good as the Kumon supplemented gains without the extra supplental time. (Of course, you could also argue that the original math instruction was merely a waste of time in the first place and you wouldn't be wrong.)

Engelmann also has evidence that his DI curriculum also accelerates the achievement of the smartest kids (he has scores broken down from IQ 71 to IQ 131!!). He also states that since the focus has alsways been in getting the low performers up to speed, the studies have sacrificed the extra acceleration that he knows is possible with the high performers.

I would really like to see how well a properly implemented DI program works with high performers at full acceleration. Who wants to start a charter school?

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

I often wonder exactly what goes on at school. I think I could do a better job and the school day would be over at noon.

Actually, this is exactly what the author of The Well Trained Mind says is possible for a well run homeschool program. Most of what goes on in school is wasted "seat time."

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

Here's another good resource for DI stuff.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

Thanks K--I'll get this stuff pulled up front.

As to time & efficiency; there is a HUGE amount of wasted time in schools. Everyone talks about it--Stevenson & Stigler, Elaine McEwan, Liping Ma (I think).

There's actually a name for it:

lost instructional time

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

The first job I had out of college was writing programmed instruction on medication for drug salesman.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

The schools consistently behave as if Time Is No Object.

This is a core principle; time is infinite, infinitely expanding, eternal, etc.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

That's semi-true when you're going to be teaching 4th grade for the next 30 years.

It's not true for any given 4th grader, who is going to be in 4th grade for exactly one year and no more.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

I probably can't dig it up, but the other HUGE loss to pedagogy is programmed instruction.

Those books work brilliantly.

No one writes them any more, and no one publishes them.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

"In Internet Explorer, you can go to View > Text Size and pick a larger size. On Firefox, you can press Ctrl-+ for the same effect."

Thanks. Somehow, my setting got changed without any direct control by me.

"I said 'Duh!'"

"That's what you always say. 8-)"

I told you I was getting cranky. I used to think that I was missing something; that I just didn't understand some subtlety. This still could be the case, but I have done a lot of studying and I haven't found it yet. To paraphrase a saying I once heard: "How can 50,000 teachers be wrong?" The answer is that they can, but I really don't fully understand why.

-- SteveH - 20 Oct 2005

--they have a lot of "lining up" time, as well.

Most homeschoolers say they're done with academics by noon or 1. Then a lot of them do the extracurricular stuff with other homeschoolers. That's when gym and fine arts and/or other types of classes are put together. It also addresses the "socialization problem" that they are often accused of. I'm mostly speaking of the ones near me. I'm sure it's different in different places.

I just don't think a lot of people realize the massive amounts of resources that homeschoolers have these days. I probably would have done it had I had a better K-12 education. Also, being with my kids 24/7 would probably have made me insane. I also think I was intimidated with my oldest due to his special needs. But with hindsight, I'm thinking that I might have done better.

-- SusanS - 20 Oct 2005

"How can 50,000 teachers be wrong?" The answer is that they can, but I really don't fully understand why.

This is why consensus is not science.

At one time there was consensus that the world was flat and that the Earth was the center of the universe.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

I just don't think a lot of people realize the massive amounts of resources that homeschoolers have these days.

It really is staggering.

I remember Carolyn saying that when she started looking for math texts, etc.

The last time she'd really looked at anything having to do with homeschooling had been maybe 10 years earlier.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

I don't think it's actually the teachers who are wrong.....it's 'the system'.....something like that

Temple and I have written an op-ed about reforming high schools, which is based on her experience reforming the meatpacking industry.

I can't wait to post it here, but it will be awhile before I can.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

I keep thinking that the exposion of homeschooling materials is going to put further pressure on the schools to reform, or, at a minimum, to become more responsive to 'the people they serve.'

It seems like there will have to be a tipping point somewhere along the line.....

That's not a prediction, btw.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

Who is the KTM commenter who frequently says the problems go back to K-5??

Is it KDeRosa?

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

Who is the KTM commenter who frequently says the problems go back to K-5??

It is, but I may not be the only one.

Let me qualify that. For your average middle-class kid whose has gotten parental support for the first five years of his/her life, problems begin in Kindergarten when the schools take over formal education and the parents (foolishly) abdicate responsibility. However, for many low peformers the problems start well before formal schooling begins. Read this to see the magnitude of the problem.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

ah-hah!

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

In a poll, most educators reported that they had never heard of it or of Direct Instruction. The reason is that the results of Project Follow Through, by model, were never released. The only official statement the Office of Education released was that Follow Through failed. Indeed it did. The overall performance of Follow Through students was not even as high as that of the traditional title-one comparison children. All this proved, however, was how uninformed all but one of the models were about how to induce skills and self esteem in low performers. The Direct Instruction model outperformed the other models by an average of more than 25 percentile points in the various subjects.

The information on the results were not disseminated simply because policy makers didn't like the results. The Office of Education was influenced by a spirited effort from the Ford Foundation to place a gag order on releasing the results by model.

In any case, for 30 years there has been scientific knowledge about how to prevent failure of at-risk students. Schools haven't been using this knowledge until recently because there had been no incentives or requirement for states and districts

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

I'm a little confused about the difference between Direct Instruction and direct instruction.

-- SusanS - 20 Oct 2005

"Direct Instruction" is Zig's specific direct instruction curriculum.

"direct instruction" is a general term for any direct instruction curriculum. The point is that any old direct instruction curriculum will not necessary get you the same results as zig's Direct Instruction.

This is why calling the old traditional curricula (that used some direct instruction techniques) Direct Instruction is wrong. A lot more goes into Direct Instruction than the teacher lecturing in front of the classroom.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

Now that I'm done hijacking the thread, do we know if Oakley has maintained a control group and other research prerequisites to turn this study into an honest to goodness scientific study?

It would be nice if we could cite these results with some scientific authority.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

She basically can't.....there's a whole Big Political Problem with all kinds of stuff (this is talking completely from memory, btw).

They were just barely able to do what they did.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

However, that's not gonna stop me when it comes to Citing Stuff!

Given the fact that the NSF is putting out studies conducted by THE SUBJECT OF THE STUDY, I say the gloves are off.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

Which reminds me, I need to get all the direct instruction stuff up front.

The Baltimore scores are incredible.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

KDeRosa

Do you have the URL for that great long interview with Engelmann...where he talks about spending months (or possibly years) figuring out how to teach particular math concepts???

It's on his site, as I recall.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

Is this book good?

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Oct 2005

This might be the link you're looking for.

Not familiar witht that book.

There's lots of good DI stuff at adihome.org.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

The reason why I don't like citing non-research as valid research is because I lose my "it's not valid research" argument against all the bad ED research. It also makes it a lot more difficult to defend against bad stats coming from stuff like this:

We adoped TRAILBLAZERS, we increased the time spent on math to at least an hour a day (we may be up to an hour and a half in grades 4-5) and we hired a math consultant who's conferring with all the teachers & troubleshooting the program...this is what we call confounding variables in the Empirical Research Biz.

-- KDeRosa - 20 Oct 2005

"I often wonder exactly what goes on at school. I think I could do a better job and the school day would be over at noon."

Steve, you could! And not just in math! You could teach your son... grammar! History, instead of social studies! The possibilities are mind-boggling.

C'mon, Steve, join us. You won't believe how much less it hurts (compared to spending all your free time fighting the system).

-- BrendaM - 22 Oct 2005

The reason why I don't like citing non-research as valid research is because I lose my "it's not valid research" argument against all the bad ED research. It also makes it a lot more difficult to defend against bad stats coming from stuff like this:

Well, sure, if you're gonna play fair.....

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Oct 2005

History instead of social studies.

Now there's a thought.

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Oct 2005

Actually, I'm probably pretty stringent about citing research when I'm trying to persuade someone who disagrees with me.

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Oct 2005

The Well Trained Mind is excellent. I checked it out from my library after seeing a recommendation here, and then I bought my own copy. It solidified my decision to home school my children (which I don't have yet, hee hee) unless financial circumstances just absolutely won't allow it. My husband will graduate summa this spring with a BS in computer science and a BS in mathematics, so we are hoping that right out of the gate, finances will not be a big issue, as we live pretty frugally anyway. My husband is taking the big leap and quitting his job in another month, and then the Great Job Search(tm) will begin. =) (BTW, anyone here who wants to pay my husband a whole lot of money, just drop me a line! ;)

As for socialization: I am absolutely determined that no child of mine will get the "socialization" that I got. Ya'll may have noticed that I'm a little bitter about my education. This site has made me feel a lot better about teaching math, my one real concern. Although I'm sure my husband can pick up any slack, fortunately.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

History instead of social studies.

Don't forget geography.

The worst part about about K-12 social studies, besides downplaying all the content is the removal of the time line. You leave high school with all of human history a jumble in your head.

I bet 99% of people cannot list the following major events of history in chronological order:

viking invasions, rome v carthage (punic war), alexander's conquest, renaissance, reformation, peloponesian war, discovery of gun powder, invasion of huns (Atilla), invasion of mongols, crusades, fall of roman empire, reign of charlemagne, discovery of America, spanish armada, american civil war, napoleanic wars, french revolution.

-- KDeRosa - 23 Oct 2005

ooo, a quiz, me try, me try =)

viking invasions, rome v carthage (punic war), peloponesian war, alexander's conquest, invasion of huns (Atilla), fall of roman empire, invasion of mongols, discovery of gun powder, reign of charlemagne, crusades, reformation, renaissance, spanish armada, discovery of America, french revolution, napoleanic wars, american civil war

And yes, my history knowledge is kind of a mishmash. I think the authors of the Well Trained Mind are exactly right in wanting to use history/historical periods as the framework for education. I think I'd have a greater understanding of a lot of literature if I had a better historical context for it, for example.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

So after looking over my list, my husband thinks that this is a relatively difficult quiz. He says my gravest error was in the placement of the viking invasions. In thinking about it, I think I confused the vikings with the Angles. Does that sound reasonable? Or am I mistaken about the Angles now as well? I know I made several other mistakes, but the spousal unit had to leave for work, so you'll have to correct me, KDeRosa^?.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

Vikings are off by about a millenium. Punic Wars and gun powder by a few hundred years, and you've switched another two.

Angles came a century or two before the vikings

-- KDeRosa - 23 Oct 2005

I'm pretty sure I know which two I switched, now. But I'll wait for other people to have a chance.

Angles came a century or two before the vikings

What I vaguely remember is that the Angles were Scandinavian invaders (Denmark?), and that the name England comes from Angle-Land. I had gotten it into my head that the Angle invasion predated the Roman invasion, and that it was the Romans that first referred to the area as "Angle-Land," and then I confused the vikings with the Angles. I really need to invest in a good encyclopedia. I like Encarta, but it doesn't always run very well on my computer.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

Which reminds me, when was the Arabic numeral system invented/widely adopted? The Roman system seems so very absurd by comparison. Did Arabic numerals provide a big boost to mathematics? I just think of trying to do all of the things we do with numbers using Roman numerals, and it makes my head hurt.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

Actually, arabic numerals originated in India. Don't know the exact date but I bet it transferred over to the arabic world around the sixth century.

-- KDeRosa - 23 Oct 2005

Lesley, you did a lot better on the time line problem than I would have.

-- CarolynJohnston - 23 Oct 2005

Thanks! That makes up for how appalled my husband was that I put the viking invasion first. =)

My husband knows a lot of Roman and British history, some of which I've managed to pick up from him over the last ten years. He had a couple of really excellent teachers, most notably his high school Latin teacher, and went to a school that was backwards enough that they were doing actual teaching.

Most of the history I learned in school was American history. In the one World History course I had as a sophomore in high school, we watched a lot of movies and did a couple of skits. A friend and I actually got points for acting out the "Bring out your dead" part of Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" when the class covered the bubonic plague! Meanwhile I have no idea what real effects, if any, the plague had on Europe, other than a general "lots of people died" notion.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

My husband is also one of these guys who knows a ton of history. Most of the history I know I've learned from him, and it's mostly American history (he is especially knowledgeable about the Civil War). American history is just the last couple of heartbeats in the overall scheme of things -- I think we're actually still playing out historical themes that are a lot older than the U.S..

Talk about fragmented, unintegrated knowledge -- my knowledge of history is so sketchy it's appalling.

-- CarolynJohnston - 23 Oct 2005

Wow! Lesley, congratulations!

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Oct 2005

That reminds me; I have to get WELL TRAINED MIND.

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Oct 2005

I think this proves my point.

They've turned every important subject into a mish mash of partially learned knowledge. Unless you re-learn the material in undergrad or on your own afterward, your K-12 knowledge is close to useless unless you had an exceptional teacher.

-- KDeRosa - 23 Oct 2005

The Well-Trained Mind recommends you have a timeline in your home and teach history chronologically. Each child had their own timeline up on the wall and we added to it every week. I must say that I easily put those events in order, but I never would have been able to had I not followed the book's directions on teaching history.

By looking up at your timeline you see events going on at the same time that you may never have realized. Charlamagne crowned king at the height of Viking exploration, Reformation wars impacting Japanese isolation, and on and on.

It's also fascinating to look at a timeline that is spaced evenly and see how ancient history takes up the vast majority of your wall.

-- SusanS - 23 Oct 2005

That was one of the exciting parts of that book to me, Susan. And I'd love to be able to relate literature into historical context. My husband told me that the reason he knows the time period for the Spanish Armada is because it was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I which was during the time Shakespeare was writing and Shakespeare wrote Henry VII. Or something like that, I may already have it muddled. He also mentally links the reign of Queen Victoria with Sherlock Holmes. I read MacBeth^?, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet in high school, but I really don't have a good sense of the historical periods, and I wish I did. There's just so much I want to learn!

Right now, I'm working math problems combining decimals, fractions, and percents, and reading Ben Franklin's autobiography.

-- LesleyStevens - 23 Oct 2005

I do the same thing with literature, Leslie. Almost nothing reveals a culture more clearly.( Hey, for a fast historical overview of Shakespeare, check out Isaac Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare. Is there anything that man doesn't know?)

I'm in decimals, fractions and percents, also. That's why I hang out around here, trying to pick up good tips from these pros. (I have a story for Catherine and Carolyn concerning a scary math teacher moment, but I'm going to have to email it lest I be found out.)

-- SusanS - 23 Oct 2005

I am home educating loosely following The Well Trained Mind. At our house history and geography are favorites. We are using Story of the World 1, Ancient History, and for geography we use Trail Guide to World Geography. For history, each child is assembling a notebook containing work done such as: written narrations of the chapters in the book as well as other books read on each topic, a personal timeline, map work, and photos with captions depicting projects or trips taken. For example, after studying the development of ancient writing each child made a cuneiform tablet. At the moment we have mummies "cooking" in a bucket. This book actually gives directions for making a mummy out of a chicken. Needless to say the kids are excited/grossed out! This series is perfect for the under 8th grade set and has 4 different books spanning ancients through modern history.

-- LoneRanger - 23 Oct 2005

"The worst part about about K-12 social studies, besides downplaying all the content is the removal of the time line. You leave high school with all of human history a jumble in your head."

Exactly! Top down thematic learning at it's worst. Anything but rote learning. However, some well-selected rote facts can form the mental framework where you can place a whole lot of knowledge. I love history now because I have a lot more mental slots to put the information. I know that a lot of history I read in the past did not stick because I had no place to put it. There were no connections. Perhaps it's not good just to memorize a lot of dates out of context, but there has to be some kind of framework. Otherwise, history will be a jumble.

A trustee at my son's private school gave an end-of-year talk about education and mentioned her problems learning history. She said she had to memorize a list of all of the presidents in order. This rote knowledge didn't help her at all, so she came to the conclusion that memorizing date knowledge was not useful. My reaction was that they just did not go far enough. The problem is not the timeline. It is the method used to learn this time line. Learning history dates out of context is perhaps as bad as learning history out of context. Some apparently feel that any attempt to memorize (repeat, practice, etc.) knowledge should be avoided at all costs. They end up dancing all around the goal of creating a timeline so that it never happens. This is my reaction to much of education; they just don't want to dive right in and get to work. It's all play learning. Education by osmosis. Low expectations.

I have this desire to go to my son's school and ask them if I can set up timelines on the walls of their long corridors. They could have students fill in the time line. This has obviously been done elsewhere, so I wonder if there is a typical approach to different scaled timelines: e.g. beginning of the universe to the formation of our solar system, pre-human history on earth, and human history.

-- SteveH - 24 Oct 2005