Ladies,
I am enjoying this dialogue, and so I'll plan to pop-in and out as you all share. My poor hubby and sister have listened endlessly to me as I ponder so many of the options that you are coming up with too!
So, I'm glad that I'm not alone in my musings.
As we're talking, I thought I'd share my thoughts on a few things mentioned too, which will help all of us as we ponder together.
When thinking of having both a weekly grid followed by a daily plan, there are some definite hang-ups in this area (some of which have already been mentioned). One is that the weekly grid, due to space, would contain mainly page numbers and references to see further notes in the daily plans. At that point though, comes the real barrier.
A weekly grid followed by 8 pages of daily plans would make it very difficult for kiddos to find the "further notes" part needed for their assignment. This would likely lead to frustration, much flipping of pages, and often to skipping the further notes and just following the weekly grid. It wouldn't be long before the plan would just be a reading plan off the weekly grid with most of the daily notes ignored.
In contrast, a weekly grid followed by just further notes for the week and not pages of daily plans would be streamlined, making the finding of the notes easier and the use of the weekly grid more functional. At that point though, the daily plans would no longer be there to follow. In the end, the fact is that I would have to write the guide differently depending on whether we go with a weekly plan or a daily plan.
In thinking through the idea that kiddos need to be planning some of their own material and breaking down some of their own tasks, I find that idea fascinating. We have talked about this at our house quite a bit over the last months, really thinking of "when" that is appropriate in a student's life.
While I agree that it is wise to look toward college, and real-life for that matter, where kiddos will have to break down their own tasks into daily chunks; it is also good to keep in mind that high school is not college but rather should be high school. This is because the high school years have an important role to play in a student's academic preparation and path. High school is a challenging academic time subject matter-wise, with much content to be learned and much critical thinking to foster, not to mention a very important time for cementing a child's faith and developing a deep and personal relationship with our Lord and Savior!
My own high school junior has a very academically full day right now and is also balancing working a job in our warehouse daily while still striving to have some family time too (not to mention having any free time that might be left over for his own pursuits). So, how much burden should a child have at this level of planning what he or she must accomplish in each subject area each day? I have to admit in turning my eyes toward the public high school and also toward the Christian high school, I see that students at that level are still going to daily classes, still have daily teaching, and still having daily assignments and daily guidance in what must be accomplished each day.
I believe that this is because the rigor of what is being learned by the student is hard enough without adding the task of planning what he/she should do each day to the child's plate.
As a parent, I believe not having a handle on what your child is learning each day is one of the quickest ways to derail a high school experience, as you can very quickly lose track of what your child is doing and lose the teacher's role in facilitating the child's learning. Remember that even in college the students are going to class each day (or watching online), taking notes from lectures, interacting with other students, doing group projects, all of which are designed and detailed by the instructor. The student is not left on his own to schedule or pursue his own course of study even at that level.
So, in allowing a child to schedule his own course of study in a homeschool high school setting, I believe we'd be asking the child to do something that is not even truly done at the college level. Additionally, a schedule that is child-driven would cause the teacher to lose his/her opportunity to teach in any organized fashion and place the teacher at the mercy of the child's whim in scheduling.
This might work if you had one child, but in many families this would result in little teaching and interaction taking place with the student. I have to guard against this with my own oldest son.
I do think learning to schedule and manage one's own time is an important skill and one that the HOD guides work more toward helping a child learn than the child who is in a typical school setting. This is because with the design of the guide, the HOD child can work toward completing subjects much more independently than a typical school child, and in doing so the HOD child learns to manage his/her time well and his/her day well. In doing projects such as those in DITHR, he/she also learns to manage a project broken up over a week's time, so there are some of those experiences as well.
In looking toward high school, the balance of teaching and independence will continue to be a delicate one!
In thinking through the possibilities of having both Teacher Guide and student sheets, I'll share that the thought is not a new one for us.
The main concern that keeps coming to mind with this type of plan is the amount of redundancy that there would be between Teacher Guide and student sheets in information. Or, if there was not redundancy, then the problem becomes matching one with the other as you are trying to teach and for me in deciding what information should go where.
This is the very reason that well-known publishers like Rod and Staff or BJU Press have gone to having the Teacher's Guide include the reduced student pages right inside the Teacher's Guide, with the Teacher's Notes surrounding the student pages.
I have found so often though, even with the Teacher's Guides like this that they contain information I wish the student pages had, as it leaves it up to me to share the information that really the student should just have access to in his/her own book.
Deciding what information to put where becomes a huge part of the planning at the point that there is a separate Teacher's Guide and Student Book! We went that route with DITHR, so I know the difficulties of writing that type of plan. It worked well for one subject, but for "all" subjects it would be an entirely different matter. Plus, you'd be surprised how many people forego the DITHR Teacher's Guide and try to just use the Student Books alone. That would be a disaster for families in trying to make high school go well! In looking toward high school, we will have also some academic subject areas scheduled that already have Teacher Guide and Student Book (like Rod and Staff, the sciences, math, reading, etc.), so to have our main guide's plans in that format would really add to the confusion more than help at that point.
I am enjoying your thoughts, as I have had many of the same thoughts. I will continue to think on what you've shared so far and look forward to much more dialogue.
P.S. For the poster who mentioned the maps, we use the Map Trek CD designed for HOD completely (with the exception of one or two maps). So, you would save yourself much time by just printing the entire thing and placing it in a 3-ring binder. Or, if you'd rather just print all the Student Maps and have the student refer to the Teacher Maps on the CD (to save on colored ink), you could do that instead (but there will be a few Teacher Maps you'll have to print to use too). Just plan to use each CD in its entirety by the end of the guide, and you'll be set!
Blessings,
Carrie
) work?
Anyway, just a thought! 