Home-School

the ultimate Small School :)

for Fractally Generative Pattern Language

Context

• GoalOfEducating Kids: We want our kids to end up as young adults capable of Making A Living, understanding the universe, dealing appropriately with their fellow humans, and being responsible citizens of an Open Society.

Forces

• We have an Educating Kids Monoculture of Tightly Coupled components (Standardized Test-s, Text-Book publishing/approving/buying, Teachers Union, etc.)
• In particular, almost all Public School-s (in the US) play by the same Game Rule-s (Best Practices). This has gone through Co-Evolution with the College Education acceptance game.
• Since most Private School-s are aiming at the same College Education target, most of them end up with the same Game Rule-s.
  • (Also, if you have multiple kids, since you pay for Private School with after-tax dollars (and no School Voucher), a Two Income Family may have most of an income going to school.)
• Therefore there are very few truly unconventional schools in the US.

Solution

• Instead of a Two Income Family, have 1 parent stay home and teach the kids. (They may be able to run a One Man Show for Making A Living from home part-time.) Aim for an UnSchooling mentality.

great if you don't need to be a Two Income Family

• Chris O Donnell disputes this issue

Chris O Donnell has a blog category on it.

John Holt was the guru of the UnSchooling variety.

State governments vary widely in how much they meddle in this: http://www.hslda.org/laws/

http://www.collegeathome.com/homeschool-domination/

If I were going to do with for my kids (Raising Kids, Educating KidsInNyc, Raising Reality Hackers) what would we do? (Curriculum)

goal: encourage kids to be Renaissance Man, Hacker, Designer

buy each a Lap Top (OLPC) and Digital Camera

• Pen Tablet

• Simulation-oriented Computer Game-s

find Sketching medium that's convenient to use in other places (charcoal makes too much hand and floor mess)

• would we need scanner, or is Digital Camera enough to capture?

get out of the house daily for lots of walking

teach them to do housework with me, run errands together

field trips

• sketching or photos

• museums, etc.

• public spaces: empty and busy

• try to get in the "back rooms" to see how places run, what people do

lots of Reading And Writing

• fiction (incl SciFi) and non-fiction

• whatever interests them

• Wikipedia

• Some sort of Thinking Space for each. (OLPC has Wiki)

  • integrate into Photo Sharing

teach them Scratch, then Squeak Smalltalk and Python

Exposing Young Kids To Science

continue Martial Art

continue PianoLessons, plus I teach them Recorder, we play group music

do some kind of Start Up/SmallCo?

keep watching good TV