Most of us have heard that the best way to learn a foreign language is to totally immerse ourselves in the language and (if possible) the culture. This has prompted some in the homeschooling community to approach general learning in the same way. The basic belief behind this method is that "subjects" should be limited and studied in greater depth and detail.The average school day for most children in public education consists of 45 to hour-long blocks of time in which children jump from math, to science, to history, to reading, to music (if lucky), etc. Considering the amount of time it takes to settle students, conduct classroom business, and other non-instructional tasks, the students are obtaining a small amount of actual instruction time for any particular subject at a time. Some schools have tried to remedy this by alternating days for subjects. Instead of the student going to eight (more or less) different short classes, the students go to four classes on say Monday and Wednesday and then four different classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Although this allow for more in-class instructional time, it is creating a big delay in learning with multiple days between sessions.
The alternative through immersive learning is to limit the number of subjects that students are exposed to and providing more time and indepth learning. One proposed format would be to require students to study reading, writing and math only for the pre-teen years. This is said to allow students to acquire a deeper level of learning since the they are focused on only three subjects. The reading of various types of history and science books will provide a basic foundation for those subjects. Once students have "mastered" reading, writing and math, they move on to other subjects such as science and history. Dr. Robinson (see my blog entitled Oral Self-Teaching), as a science professor, argued that math is the language of science and that true scientific concepts cannot be comprehended unless the student first had a thorough understanding of math.
I do not think that teachers should wait until children are ready to read to teach the children about other subjects such as science or social studies. When the teachers explain these subjects in words that the children can understand they will comprehend what they are reading. Children are very smart and whatever they are taught with words and examples that they can understand they will do good. I think children should be exposed to as much as possible when they are young.
ReplyDeleteGriselda Garcia
I agree with Griselda, children shouldn't have to wait to start learning science and social studies. All content areas can be taught on the same day without having to sacrifice one or the other. Actually, the content areas should be inter-disciplinary. Teach reading using a social studies lesson, teach math using a science lesson, they do not have to be alienated in such a way that this is math time and only math should be taught at this time. This way, students are immersed even more into the language and it all becomes more meaningful seeing that learning to tell time in math and then using that knowledge to see elapsed time in a science experiment is actually, real life.
ReplyDelete-Paola
I agree with both of your comments. After going back and looking at the various literature (homeschool groups, magazine articles, etc), here is what some homeschoolers are saying:
ReplyDeleteElementary level science should not be "taught" as a class from a text. Elementary level science is best learned through hands-on self-discovery such as taking nature walks, cooking, laying in the grass with a microscope, watching the stars, etc. The arguement is that this creates a better science foundation than can be provided through a textbook.
Dr. Robinson, a homeschool parent who teaches science at CalTech, says that most elementary level science textbooks are so "watered down" in order for complicated concepts to be taught to young minds, that these concepts end up being wrong. His arguement goes with the one already mentioned...that children need to spend time interacting with nature in order to build the basic foundations of science. He goes on to state that the theoretical concepts behind science cannot be fully understood until the learner speaks the language of math.
As a previous public school classroom teacher, I have had a hard time agreeing with some of the methods used in homeschooling. I continually seek information regarding these methods along with communication with homeschool and public school educators on their interpretations and opinions.
Your insightful comments are very helpful to me in determining what is best for my children.