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There's Nothing like a Real Life Lesson in Geography
by
Amy Cortez, Editor - The Eclectic Telegraph
 Two
years ago in our homeschool we studied the stock market. Locally,
I had been reading in our very slim business page about how the
public schools were also learning about the stock market by playing
a stock market "game" online. The results of how much
each school "made" in these "games" was published
in the local business page, much like the school lunch menus and
basketball scores are published. I couldn't imagine the lessons
being learned by this sort of thing, but I imagine just as there
is a valueable lessons in our travel, there must have been one
in these competitive strock market games too.
We decided, in our stock market study, that we would actually
invest some money in the stock market and track what really happens.
Nothing like a little reality to spice up the lesson.
So
you may ask, if you were lured into reading this article because
you were curious about our recent travels,
why are you reading about
our study of the stock market?
I
had read an article in the London
Times about how gold sales in Inda and China had increased
and I mentioned the article and that a really spicey lesson might
be to invest in gold as it is a pretty volitile, yet interesting
indicator in the global economy. We looked at several mutual funds
featuring gold and settled on one after reading the prospectus,
etc. We decided that if we made money, we'd use it to fund a trip
somewhere. Needless to say, and to make a long story short, we
got into gold around $445 an ounce and we got out when it was
$635 an ounce. It was a great lesson in the success of investing
in the American Stock market. Just to be sure I wasn't promoting
gambling, we also studied, intensely, the crash of the American
market in 1929 and then we booked a trip on a Windjammer ship.
Now
I can get into our real life geography lesson...
Did
you know, Johannes De Graaff, the commander of Statia from 1776
to 1781 ordered the first salute to the American flag?
From
Statia Tourist Office - History
of Statia webpage:
During the latter part of the
18th century, St. Eustatius was the major supplier of arms
and ammunition to the rebellious British Colonies in North
America and the subject of conflict among the most powerful
seafaring nations of the time.
For a while, Statia was the only link between Europe and
fledgling American colonies. Even Benjamin Franklin had
his mail routed through Statia to ensure its safe arrival.
Statia remembered as the emporium of the Caribbean, was
nicknamed "The Golden Rock", reflecting its former
prosperous trading days and wealthy residents.
On November 16, 1776 the American Brig-of-War, the "Andrew
Doria", sailed into the harbor of Statia firing its
13-gun salute indicating America's long sought independence.
The 11-gun salute reply, roaring from the canons at Fort
Oranje under the command of Governor Johannes de Graaff,
established Statia as the first foreign nation to officially
recognize the newly formed United States of America. [read
on] |
We
traveled aboard Windjammes
S.V. Polynesia for 7 days in the French West Indies. St. Eustatius,
or Statia, as the locals call it, was my favorite island, followed
closely by Anguilla and Nevis. We have a whole lot more to say
about our trip and htere may even be an expansion in our travle
log with a small web about this trip, so stay tuned.....
India
and China help gold sales to glittering $38bn
By Peter Klinger
From The Times, September 08, 2005
RAMPANT economic growth in India and China have propelled
consumer demand for gold jewellery to $38 billion (£20.6
billion).
The World Gold Council said that the record figure for the
12 months to June was driven by favourable conditions in
key markets and promotion of the metal... [read
on]
|
Daily
Gold Price History
London Afternoon (PM) Gold Price Fix - Since 1970 |
War
Comes to the Islands: The American Revolutionary War in
the Caribbean
by Timothy Neeno
Americans tend to forget that the Thirteen Colonies were
but a part of a vast empire that stretched from the gray
shores of Newfoundland to the jungles of Nicaragua and Guyana
and the spice entrepots of India. The islands of the Caribbean,
first revealed to European eyes by Columbus, were a vital
part of that empire. The islands of the West Indies were
rich in tobacco, coffee, and above all, sugar, and the nation
that could garner the greatest share of this trade would
have wealth beyond comparison.
The American Revolution grew out of the long struggles between
the British and the French that began in 1689. |
The
Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion
By Robert L. Paquette |
Don't
Weigh the Elephant -- Feed the Elephant
Recently I read an article by By Milton Chen - executive director
of The George Lucas Educational Foundation entitled "Don't
Weigh the Elephant -- Feed the Elephant". The title is
what caught my eye and hopefully it caught yours. It's an another
article about how we might fix our public school system by teaching
our kids about how their brains work and how they grow with each
bit of information they gain. As interesting as the article was,
I was more excited by the ideas contained in the opening passage
from the article:
I
was at a meeting recently when a colleague told a story
of being in India, where an educator there asked her, somewhat
skeptically, "In America, you test your students a
lot, don't you?" She replied, "Well, indeed, the
United States has a national policy that requires testing
of all students in certain grades." The Indian educator
said, "Here, when we want the elephant to grow, we
feed the elephant. We don't weigh the elephant."
Now, I've never been to India, and I've never tried to weigh
an elephant. But this strikes me as the most concise and
sound educational policy advice I've heard: Concentrate
on what we should be doing intellectually (and physically)
-- feeding our children, and not just measuring their weight.
But our nation, burdened by NCLB testing, is finding it's
incredibly difficult to weigh an elephant accurately. The
obsession with testing is slowing down an already lumbering
educational system, at a time when we need to be speeding
up. |
As homeschoolers, many of us have choices about wether or not
we want our students to participate in standardized/academic testing,.
In general this is the time of year we start to think about it
and there are as many different opinions about academic testing
as there are homeschoolers. Many people object to standardized
testing. The Public schools are certainly embracing standardized
testing, out of requirement by law and need/desire for more funding.
Whereever you stand on the subject of testing, it seems to be
here to stay.
One of my favorite topics is No Child Left Behind because
of the element of required "assessment" of students
and teachers. There's a "catch 22" for you! In the
state where I homeschool, we have to send proof that our students
show improvement each year and we have three choices in order
to do that. Aside from the whole idea of having to prove to
the state that my student is improving each year rubbing me
the wrong way, all three choices are in my opinion, invasive
to the personal rights of the student. One choice is the standardized
test, the next is to have our portfolio assessed by a state
certified teacher and the third is a method that both the
parent and the superintendent agree on. Well, if you're dealing
with a middle school age student that prefers Quantum Physics
to Earth Science and Wheelock's Latin to English Grammar,
you're kind of in a weird place, especially when none of these
choices sit very well with you in the first place.
One
thing I have found in dealing with a gifted student is that
perfectionist streak can be a helper, or a hinderance in test
taking. "It's just a test", I tell my student, who
randomly freaks out over any kind of measuring that gets done
to analyze his "smarts" (as he puts it). In our
homeschool we look at Standardized tests as a necessary evil
that measures someone else's idea of some subset of knowledge
that specific age group should know. In general,
how you present the idea of a test to a student that exhibits
all the common signs of giftedness, greatly determines the
outcome of the test, in my opinion. The public schools haven't
missed out on this idea as they are offering "incentives"
to those students who "ace" tests, though I'll let
OldSage comment
on that noteworthy item. In our homeschool, my student takes
the test, I let my student evaluate if he needs/wants to "fix"
what it indicates is "weak", we move on, no biggie.
When
it gets right down to a test, it is a tool that allows another
person not familiar with your student to be able to compare
statistically (or apples to apple), when there is a reason
to do this. (Though outside of school, when are the adults
ever measured like this?) So regardless of my philosophy on
testing, it is a part of the current day "game",
so I administer a CAT-5 every year for 2 reasons. 1. so my
student knows what a standardized test looks like 2. to satisfy
my curiosity that he could play that game if he needed to
(like on the SAT). Lame reasons, but that's what we do. In
this age of standardized testing I thinks it's better to be
the informed player on the sidelines than the ostrich who
doesn't even pay attention to the game in the stadium.
At
our website, we have pages where I have been collecting information
about standardized/academic
testing and
IQ testing. OldSage
also offers some opinions and information about standardized
testing in the JavaHouse this month.
Students'
View of Intelligence Can Help Grades
by Michelle Trudeau
National Public Radio Morning Edition, February 15,
2007 ·
A new study in the scientific journal Child Development
shows that if you teach students that their intelligence
can grow and increase, they do better in school. |
Don't
Weigh the Elephant -- Feed the Elephant
By Milton Chen
The George Lucas Educational Foundation
Published: 2/28/2007
Let's focus on giving kids what they need -- information
about their own brains, it turns out. |
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