I almost considered turning the air conditioner on in my car today. It was stuffy, a bit humid, and it was about 78 degrees outside. I turned the fan up and rolled down the windows instead, but still, I am reminded that summer is coming. The weather report said it's supposed to be in the 80s tomorrow.
For those of you who live up north (anywhere north of Houston is North), you may be jealous of our warmth, and be thinking that the fact that summer is coming is a good thing. Well, you may be cooped up inside all winter with freezing cold outside, but we are cooped up all summer with unbearable heat outside!
I thought last summer might have been our last one in Houston, as my husband was looking for a new job. He was interviewed for a really promising one in North Carolina this past December, and we were starting to get our house ready to put on the market, but that job fell through, we recently found out, and we are back to square one. So we may end up spending another summer here after all. It's all still a little up in the air, as my husband is still looking for a job in various places. He doesn't need a job - he has a perfectly fine one, but he is eligible for early retirement this year, and so we decided it might be worth looking to try and move away from the Houston climate. (and it's ok for me to post this publicly, as his bosses know all about it anyway)
I have to admit, I love warm weather. 80-85 is about perfect for me. So as long as I have air conditioning in the summer when I want it, I'm really ok staying here. But I wouldn't mind losing the humidity either.
The near-move this past month or two is probably why I haven't blogged lately. At least that will be my excuse. Uncertainty about our plans has made planning extracurricular activities for the kids difficult too. I purposefully didn't sign the kids up for too much this school year, fearing that we might move half-way through. Now, it's about time to start signing up for the more popular programs for next year, and I'm not sure what to do. Pay a deposit now, and maybe have to lose the money later if we do move this spring or summer or fall? Wait until we know more, and risk the most interesting classes being full?
I bought a nice, large whiteboard last fall, which we are using for spelling, math, and many other things. For the longest time, I had it propped against a wall, and had the kids (and me) sit on the floor to use it. It was a bit awkward, but I didn't want to put more holes in the wall if we were going to put the house on the market soon. Well, when this recent job opportunity fell through, I decided to just go ahead and hang up the whiteboard. It's so nice to be able to stand at the board, and not sit hunched over to write on it!
I think we just need to trust that things will happen when they're going to happen, and not worry too much about planning ahead. I don't mean not to plan - I'm a devoted planner, after all - but just to not over-plan. Do what seems best right now, and don't worry about what else (or what two trillion potential possibilities) might happen later. I think God lets us see just as far as we need to, and wants us to trust Him for what's around the corner. He'll handle it. I don't need to worry about it. Plan, yes, but worry, no.
Summer is coming. That's a fact. But God's got it all under control.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Visual-Spatial Learners
A mailing list I follow had some recent questions and discussion about visual-spatial learners. I've heard of the term before, though I had never read much about it. The recent discussion seemed to have some relevance to my children, though, so I did a search on the term and found some interesting articles.
This article (http://www.dyslexia.com/library/silver1.htm) discusses what a visual-spatial learner is, and how they might have difficulties in school - at least traditional school.
This article (http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm) has a wonderful comparison chart showing the typical differences between a visual-spatial learner and an auditory-sequential learner. The article focuses more on gifted visual-spatial children and how they learn best.
You know, I don't think any experts knew stuff like this back when I was growing up. At least, I hadn't heard of learning styles being discussed much, or how to best teach different children. But it is fascinating to read now, and I think I'm learning as much (or maybe more) about myself than about my children.
I remember in college, studying physics, coming to a conclusion around my junior year that I did not learn like most of the others in the class. I thought it was because I was female, and pretty much everyone else was male (there were 2 other women I remember in my classes). But I think now it might have been more this visual-spatial phenomena. I distinctly remember realizing that I needed to learn the big picture first. Learning the details first just didn't make sense to me, because I had to understand how everything was going to fit together first. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the concepts until I understood how they went together. In my year-long electromagnetism class, we studied electricity the first quarter, and then magnetism the second quarter. I was struggling considerably with electricity, but once we started on magnetism, it suddenly all clicked, and my grades shot up. The professor even noticed, and asked me to meet with him to figure out why I had suddenly seemed to understand it all now. He was a wonderful professor, and I think he wanted to know what he had done that made it easier for me, so that he could duplicate that type of teaching in the future. The main reason was that magnetism was the "other half" of the concept that I was missing during the first quarter. It is "electromagnetism" after all, and I couldn't make sense of it all until I could put both halves together.
Anyway, that seems to be a common issue with visual-spatial learners. Also, visual-spatial learners tend to think in pictures, not in words, and to have a hard time putting into words something that they seem to instinctively understand. That describes me exactly. That is one reason I like writing much better than talking, and why I go over and over what I've written until it is right. It takes me a while to put my thoughts into words.
I am pretty sure my oldest child is also a visual-spatial learner, and probably my youngest too, based on that checklist of traits in the 2nd article I listed. I'm not sure about my middle child. She excels at everything so easily that she can probably learn both ways, so I'm not sure which describes her more. In any case, learning about things like this can help with homeschooling. It can help us pick the best curriculum (or method of teaching for any curriculum) for our particular children, and it can help us not be so frustrated when they don't learn things the way we think they should!
This article (http://www.dyslexia.com/library/silver1.htm) discusses what a visual-spatial learner is, and how they might have difficulties in school - at least traditional school.
This article (http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm) has a wonderful comparison chart showing the typical differences between a visual-spatial learner and an auditory-sequential learner. The article focuses more on gifted visual-spatial children and how they learn best.
You know, I don't think any experts knew stuff like this back when I was growing up. At least, I hadn't heard of learning styles being discussed much, or how to best teach different children. But it is fascinating to read now, and I think I'm learning as much (or maybe more) about myself than about my children.
I remember in college, studying physics, coming to a conclusion around my junior year that I did not learn like most of the others in the class. I thought it was because I was female, and pretty much everyone else was male (there were 2 other women I remember in my classes). But I think now it might have been more this visual-spatial phenomena. I distinctly remember realizing that I needed to learn the big picture first. Learning the details first just didn't make sense to me, because I had to understand how everything was going to fit together first. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the concepts until I understood how they went together. In my year-long electromagnetism class, we studied electricity the first quarter, and then magnetism the second quarter. I was struggling considerably with electricity, but once we started on magnetism, it suddenly all clicked, and my grades shot up. The professor even noticed, and asked me to meet with him to figure out why I had suddenly seemed to understand it all now. He was a wonderful professor, and I think he wanted to know what he had done that made it easier for me, so that he could duplicate that type of teaching in the future. The main reason was that magnetism was the "other half" of the concept that I was missing during the first quarter. It is "electromagnetism" after all, and I couldn't make sense of it all until I could put both halves together.
Anyway, that seems to be a common issue with visual-spatial learners. Also, visual-spatial learners tend to think in pictures, not in words, and to have a hard time putting into words something that they seem to instinctively understand. That describes me exactly. That is one reason I like writing much better than talking, and why I go over and over what I've written until it is right. It takes me a while to put my thoughts into words.
I am pretty sure my oldest child is also a visual-spatial learner, and probably my youngest too, based on that checklist of traits in the 2nd article I listed. I'm not sure about my middle child. She excels at everything so easily that she can probably learn both ways, so I'm not sure which describes her more. In any case, learning about things like this can help with homeschooling. It can help us pick the best curriculum (or method of teaching for any curriculum) for our particular children, and it can help us not be so frustrated when they don't learn things the way we think they should!
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Personalized Learning
I just read a very interesting article, mostly about personalized learning:
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/personalized-learning/
The article doesn't mention homeschooling at all, but I could see many relevant connections to homeschooling in the discussion. For instance, the article states that one-on-one tutoring is the most efficient form of learning (but too expensive to provide for every student!). It talks about differentiated learning (teaching each student at their own level), and independent study, and computer-based learning. All in all, it was very enlightening for me to read, having a mindset, or background, of homeschooling. Many of the things they suggest as being good and useful are the types of things we homeschoolers use already. Some of their comments were even new thoughts for me to consider.
The concepts discussed do sound like they might improve classroom-based education, and public schools. (Not everyone can, or is willing to homeschool, after all.) It's a difficult job to teach a classroom full of different students all at once, with such a wide variety of needs and abilities. If they can use some of the tools and methods we use as homeschoolers, all the better for them!
It is a rather long article, but if you have 30 minutes or more to spare, you might find it interesting too.
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/personalized-learning/
The article doesn't mention homeschooling at all, but I could see many relevant connections to homeschooling in the discussion. For instance, the article states that one-on-one tutoring is the most efficient form of learning (but too expensive to provide for every student!). It talks about differentiated learning (teaching each student at their own level), and independent study, and computer-based learning. All in all, it was very enlightening for me to read, having a mindset, or background, of homeschooling. Many of the things they suggest as being good and useful are the types of things we homeschoolers use already. Some of their comments were even new thoughts for me to consider.
The concepts discussed do sound like they might improve classroom-based education, and public schools. (Not everyone can, or is willing to homeschool, after all.) It's a difficult job to teach a classroom full of different students all at once, with such a wide variety of needs and abilities. If they can use some of the tools and methods we use as homeschoolers, all the better for them!
It is a rather long article, but if you have 30 minutes or more to spare, you might find it interesting too.
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