How Do I Know We're Using the Right Curriculum?
Amy Cortez, Editor -- The Eclectic
Telegraph
You just do. If you're not, you just get
there....
When
we started homeschooling at 3rd grade level, we used Calvert Curriculum,
but quickly found that it was not enough for a highly gifted student.
In the early part of 3rd grade I began developing supplemental
study guides. 4th grade I hoped would be more substantial but
I found as we went along I ended up generating many supplements
to Calvert's curriculum. By the end of 4th grade I realized that
I needed something "meatier" than what we were getting
for our money with Calvert. I had also recognized that my student
didn't seem to absorb materials the same way I did. His learning
style was different than mine. That made for an interesting path
to take. As it turns out, I am a sequential learner and my student
is visual spatial. [read about our
experience] "Visual-spatial" was my summer chant
between 4th and 5th "grade".
At the fifth grade I started developing our own courses of study,
curriculum. For each topic I would research materials, find appropriate
books, videos, activities and then make a roadmap of the journey
we intended to take in that subject. I put these plans into a
syllabus-like format so that they were easy (for us) to use and
I ended up calling them our study guides.
Now,
I don't mean to belittle the value of a purchased curriculum because
for some they can be a great resource. But what you have to look
at is is the idea that even though it may be a resource for mom
(or dad), it may be a nightmare for the student. In our case it
was a nightmare for my student in many ways, but a blessing is
specific ways. This gets back to the idea of knowing how your
student learns and knowing how you learn [let
me read about this idea]. The nightmares were that we had
to do certain things by certain times and some of the textbooks
and workbooks were, well, part of the nightmare. The blessing
was the idea that there was a certain structure of flow that my
student found comfort in. He liked the idea that there was a certain
path or roadmap that directed us.
The
key to what I perceive our successes with curriculum is the idea
that my student, from really day one, has directed his own course
of study. In "Elementary school" years he told me at
a high level what he wanted to study, for example how animals
live in different places (habitats), how germs grow(biology/chemistry),
why some poems rhyme (sigh) and I would find books, videos, classes,
field trips I knew would be interesting to my student. In "middle
school" years, when it was a topic we were exploring further,
my student would be able to give me more specifics in what he
wanted to deal with as far as materials and trips. Now that we
have reached "high school" level, my student pretty
much tells me where his compass is pointed and it is my job, if
he hasn't already done so, to find the best and most challenging
"stuff" for his pursuits. He gets to review what I am
proposing prior to our "school year" starting. Everything
I research for each topic for my student, I end up putting in
a study guide and a course survey.
I
know that my student's focus can be pretty intense on certain
topics and this sometimes causes him frustration because he also
wants to move along in other areas too. So this the object of
the game in developing our study guides. Generally I develop
one study guide for each "subject" we are studying.
Each guide is specific enough to take us along a certain path,
but is loose enough to permit a wild tangent into an obtuse topic.
"Birddogging" is our very technical term for the intense
pursuit of an obtuse idea. When I ask my student where he is in
our study guide he'll sometimes reply "birddogging Agave
plants today mom" - or whatever the pursuit is.
Because of the special requirements I recognized for my student,
I spend a great deal of time researching the materials and the
flow in our study guides. They contain road maps that lead us
through the typical and atypical jags in the course of our study.
Each study guide outlines the resources we used and the activities
and projects we planned and executed. Many people have asked me
for these guides but because I made them for my student I don't
make them available to anyone else. Always, I combine these study
guides with specific travel and community service and that is
typically what our curriculum consists of. The combination of
these items are described in detail in a document I call a "Course
Survey". I use the "Course Survey" to describe
and document our school year.I recently put overviews of these
course survey and an abbreviated listing of the resources we used
atthrough out the years at our website: [our
study guides]. I am also in the process of writing a book,
but if you are a homeschooling parent, you can imagine how well
that is going.
So,
to get back to the the original question"How do I know we;re
using the right curriculum?", you end up discovering that
there really isn't a "right" curriculum. At our house
we have a saying and this is each moment is a learning opportunity
and what you take away from that moment is all yours. Each person
learns at their own pace picking up what they need as they go,
everything else learned along the way is superfluous really. I
have heard some parents panic at the idea that their student doesn't
write or can't do percents at a specific age and to that I say,
just wait. They will when they need it.
In my opinion, it's the parent's job to promote the idea that
your student will want to pursue his interests at such a level
that they will need to hone specific skills in order to explore
a topic completely. It is also the job of the parent to remind
students that if they intend to go to college, there are expectations
about the caliber of student entering these places and that it
is up to the student (not the parent) to make sure they are prepared
for that pursuit. The parents best help is being tuned in enough
to their child's interest to point them in the appropriate direction.
by
Susan Wise Baue, Jessie Wise 
