Your 3 main reasons for home-edding

[BeNimble]

What are YOUR 3 main reasons? (Please, anyone who wants to talk about something else, start a new thread; or this discussion will lose it's value to anyone who's watching.) x

lol am assuming that at some point in my studies someone will bung me an electron microscope . i'm sure there musy be loads, just lying around...

no its just for looking at bugs and so on really. plant cells etc. argos apparently had a suspiciously high magnification one quite cheaply, so i wondered if i was confusing myself.

but good tip re universities, i didn't think of thast. i have a sporting chance of getting into the university of glamorgan faculty, possibly, as i know someone who works there...

(my real reason for heing is, no way, to give myself an excuse to study science. Oh no)

ie, mae treorci yn dda.

Looking at plant cells isn't too bad with a reasable microscope, they tend to be a bit bigger than animal cells. The problem that you would have it cutting sections thin enough....They need to be about 50 microns thick to see any real detail. Red onion skins are reasonable.

For animal stuff you really have to stain things to get detail (I used to do this sort of thing for a living!)

Pond water samples are worth looking at, you can see stuff like volvox etc without cutting ir staining anything.

oh cool that is interesting, will try that

yes was wondering about staining. i did work experience in a cytology lab at guys and also on the human genome project and one of the things I remember doing was watching the staining of slides. and thinking feck me thats hard. (karyotyping was rather fun though IIRC )

If your child is in a rough secondary school, in a low ablity set with behavioural problems they arent likely to get to do a lot of practical in science lessons. A low ablity set in a secondary school might have a mixture of kids with behavioural problems, moderate special needs, dyslexia and other special needs. I have a friend who is a newly qualified teacher in a local comp and she has been given all the bottom sets to teach. How is the the least experienced teacher expected to cope with some of the most challenging kids?

I think that a lot of science is do able in the kitchen. Certainly if you buy a chemistry set you can do a lot.

However it does take a lot of planning. Issac Newton didnt have a school science lab.

At home it is much easier to do something like dissection. We eat meat so the animal will not be purely being killed for dissection. I strongly object to killing an animal purely for dissection.

I have already shown my son a chicken's leg and he was fasinated by looking at the ligaments, tendons and muscles. The chicken's leg was made into chicken curry.

I am not a home educator because my son likes school. However we have done a lot of science at home. I strongly object to the the 21st century science curriculum that is taught in state secondary schools. Although my son is only four years old, I am determined that he will get to learn proper science if he wants to.

thats a good idea, frances, re the discection!

I went to a school often hailed as the top state school in the country. 100% A-C GCSE results the norm.

I do not remember doing any experiements at ALL in a level biology. de nada. We stained slides and went on a field trip to count bracken stands. that was it.

I also was not allowed to take both English and any sciences except biology. At this point I had a crush on sarte so...ffs, I did 6 sodding A levels, you'd have thought something could be arranged...

ok but a practical question, frances. How then can vegetarians (my dp is a strict veggie, and I respect his wish for his kids to be also) disecect? Any thoughts? I'd rather not buy an animal just for discection but...I will, tbh. Followed by a burial or suchlike. I do think that learning about its physiology is actually a worthwhile moral end, really. I'd rather be used for medical research than eaten, I think!

hmmmm.

Practicals have their place, but to my mind (and I am a real scientist's scientist ), it isn't always centre stage. I have carried out some reserch on this in the classroom, and there is no significant difference on learning if you do a practical or not!

In fact there are times when it is counter productivem since kids get so wrapped up in the doing, they just don't learn the theory that you want them to understand. A classic example being the starch in a leaf/ photosynthesis experiment. If, at the end of the lesson , you ask them what they found out, they just give you a list of what they did, rather than what they found.

Practicals have a place, a very important place, in enthusing and interesting. You also want them to learn the techniques. So they have a very important role. However, in my experience they often have little to add to improving student understanding, even in those children who are primarity kinesthetic learners.....for these children building models, or making posters tends to be a more effective teaching method.

You also have the deraded 'Brainiac' effect when all the little blighters want to do is to blow things up, and then can't be arse to find out why the thing happened.

The lab techs tease me that I run a campain for the abolision of practicals.....it isn't quite true, but I don't do them unless I feel it will enhance the lesson in a significant way. And not having them doesnt hurt the kids learning....they over perform with me at all levels, and they also love the lessons. It isn't all black and white. They often get more out of a computer simulation.

Some practicals tho are worth their weight in gold, mostly in physics and chemistry. The bio ones are so dull until you get to degree level

Re dissection.

I think that these are fantastic as they give the kids are real grounding in some basic physiology and anatomy. Sadly due to cost and time constraints we no longer 'do' a rat at A level.....this is, to my mind, a great shame.

What would your dp do if you had a rat in the house Filly( real question not snide)? If the answer is get in the rat catcher, becuae he doesn't have issues with killing vermin, then I suggest that you buy a preserved rat. By far and away much more educational than the food grade kidneys and hearts that we use in school.

another way round would be to get a food grade kidney.....you dissect it, then give to to next door to cook with.....food 'charity' with a divert for educational reasons????

Ohh and another thought (can't you tell this is a fav subject of mine? ).

Anyone thinking of teaching/ learning science alongside their offspring should try to get a copy of work by Rosalind Driver. This woman worked on misconceptions in science. These misconceptions are practicaly universal, and cross gender, class, and racial/political divisions. They are caused when we, as small children, try to explain the world around us using initition and 'coomon sense', things that very often get it toatly wrong when it comes to science. ask a group of adults where plants get their food and they will often tell you, 'The soil', ask them which object whould hit the ground first, a heavy one or a light one, and they will go for the heavy one. Thses are almost universal, and are buggers to 'unpick' as a teacher/educator/fellow learner, whatever!

Giving a chld a practical doesn't cure them, I've lost count of the number of times a kid will show you results which 'prove' their undestanding....the clasic being plotting the results f a cooling experiment as a straight line.....they always 'get' those results, even when you can see that there is a clear plateux when the liquid begins to enter the solid phase. But kids, even the brightest, will ignore those points where this happens because it doesn't fit their world view of how cooling must work! ( in a straight line natch!)

These are the times when actually knowing the stuff yorself first, is vital, because if you don't, all you get as an even bigger muddle, and even more entrenched misunderstanding.

Roalind Driver is well worth a read!

I think parental influence and teaching is very important whether children are in school or not. I think I was able to pay to buy my children the education I wanted for them, well rounded, love learning, not exam factories, outside the national curriculum (private schools don't have to follow it) but with A level results which gave them some life choices. I can certainly see some attractions to home schooling. Good thread.

I wouldn't have had the patience for it although I suppose the traditional option in the UK for girls people didn't want sullied by school was buying in the teaching at home, governess etc. Am I right that the Queen was home schooled? You're in good company there.

The queen had a governess/ tutor. She didn't go to school, but I don't think the Queen Mum was involved!

I've read "Making sense of Science" by7 Rosalind Driver and I have to confess to having a lot of the biology misconceptions inspite of a having a Physics degree. I had studied Biology to GCSE and Chemistry to A-level.

I think that practicals are a great way of generating interest in science. I found that when I was school that practical work helped to moviate me. Admitally a lot of practical work can be difficult with poor quality school equipment. Or you can get results which dont quite fit the theory.

Its hard to give everyone in the class the attention necessary to make sure they understand the practical. In a one to one situation this is possible.

It would be interesting to know where you can get hold of a peserved rat. I dont have issues with killing rats which are verbim, but I dont want to kill a laboratory rat for the purposes of dissecting it. Surely a rat that has been killed by a rat catch might carry disease.

Frances5.....the misconceptions crop up just about everywhere!

I remember seeing a description of a group of primary school teachers ( in training) being shown the experiment where a ball bearing is dropped vertically and fired out at an angle, obviously they hit the floor the same time. So sure where these women that their idea ,that the vertical one would hit first, they eventualy insisted that the equipment was faulty!

This issue is the reason I worry when people insist that they can lear alongside their kids with no problems. This is often true, but not always.....some things do need considerable prior study before you can help explain them to someone else.

And while it is true that children can ' discover' the right answer, it took us hundreds of years to work out stuff on a discovery by discovery basis. Kids just will not 'discover' the particule theory of matter in a few afternoons work

Discovery has its place, but I don't think it can form the whole basis of a modern scientific education. sometimes kids need things explaning to them. And in general it is better if you understand it yourself before you start!

Oh and I wouldn't cut up a 'wild' rat, many of them carry Weil's Disease, which can be passed on to humans and causes a rather nasty form of hepatitis.

This is such an interesting thread - MB I'm sooo glad you are back

This is fascinating - I am learning so much. Which is the best Rosalind driver book to get (I have primary age children?)

And ditto with John Holt please

I like the sound of HE but it daunts me how I could teach them enough - they already floor me with some of their questions, and how to answer them in a way a 5 year old can understand!!

I had never really thought about the 2 hours a day thing - and that is only for term times, there must be so much time and scope for other things.

The one that Frances5 mentions is great for all ages, and takes you right through all the sciences and all ages.

It is very important, I think, to understand the basic misconceptions, but it is also just plain old interesting to read. They are , as I said, almost universal, across all countries, facinating stuff and well worth a read.

You have to build in the misconception into the lesson plan, and basically 'unpick' it. You can't just provide them with the 'right' answer....well, you can, but if you do, it doesn't 'stick' becaues the misconception is so entrenched. You have to logically work them out of it.

I realise that home ed isn't the same as teaching a class....you don't need to do all the 'teaching' stuff, but I do think that understanding these misconceptions is key to teaching science. And given that many, many adults hold them too, you have to get your own understanding sorted, before you start working with your kids.

I've been lurking on here, I"ll admit it.
I was thinking I could learn a load of science alongside my school educated ds as I know there is a big gap in my knowledge. Not that I think I could teach him anything but just to expand our interest in science jointly. I shall certainly get hold of that Rosalind Driver book

very well written for a 'pedagogical' text book!

Avoid Bruner at all cost. I tried to read him once, I still have the scars!

I find it facinating that children all over the world use the same 'explanations' (wrong ones ) for the world around them. It is part of the reason that I don't belive that children can just 'work it all out' from experiments in class. Experiments have their place, but to my mind it is not as central a role as you'd think when it comes to understanding science. In fact, sometimes their use can be counter productive.

(this was my reserch project when I did my PGCE )

That and the fact that they progress through the stages etc etc.

The reason that the Driver stuff is so imprtant is that we all share these misconceptions, and the last thing that children need is for their educators to re-inforce them, by sharing them

I also have some issues with Gardener...actually not with his ideas, but rather the way that they have been put into place in some schools. I fully agree with the multiple intelegences thing, but we now have the crazy situation where children are refusing to be taught in any 'style' other thn their prefered option.....so you get kids refusing to read something because they are Kinesthetic learners. Again I thing Gardener has an important place, but I think we should be encouraging breadth of learning styles for all children, not 'gettoising' them into thinking that they can only learn in a particular way.

If you look at meta analysis of all these things VAKI has a very small effect. The simples giggest improvement that you can make in children's learning is by practicing formative assessment (something that parents do fairly automatically) REad 'Beyond the Black Box'....a google will get you it....faciniting stuff.

Following on from this thread I think that I have decided to do a Masters in Ed! You have all re-lit the flame!

I have 'Making sense of secondary science-research into children's ideas'

routledge farmer isbn 0-415-09765-7

It does cover pre secondary kids as well

1. Chronically abusive Bullying.

2. Gradual belief that he wasn't learning anything in school

3. Son was certain he would go to hell if he said boo to anybody after the last bout of religious brainwashing.

4. Being able to holiday and visit (educationally) when we wanted at our own pace without hordes of other holidaymakers.

There are other reasons but they are minor and all mixed in with the main one.