This week marked the start of school back home in Danbury, CT so we figured it would be a good time to officially start The Ruski School. When we told people about our travel plans a common question was “What about the kids and school?”. In theory the answer is simple, homeschooling on the road or as we call it roadschooling. Like many of our assumptions about this trip there was a significant gap between our expectations and reality.
Homeschooling is allowed in all 50 states with varying regulations. Some states require detailed logs of instruction time while other states like Connecticut have no rules, you can do whatever you want.
The kids ages are a big part of the reason why we choose this year to travel. Sierra will miss the 7th grade, Savanna will miss 4th grade. Neither are in high school where academics and social lives get more complicated. Our main academic concern for both kids is keeping up with reading and math.
For learning materials we are trying to stay as light as possible, the more stuff we bring, the more stuff we have to carry in our limited backpacks. My back was sore before we left. Our plan was to rely heavily on Khan Academy, especially for math and science, along with various other supplements.
Each our our kids present a different teaching challenge. Sierra has been burning through the math on Khan Academy, claiming she has covered more in 2 weeks than she would have in two months at school. Sounded great to us, maybe she will actually be ahead when we return. Sierra takes a different view, thinking now 6 weeks of doing nothing should be acceptable.
After much debate we finally agreed on a short break from math with a tangent on to computer science also on Khan. Their programming basics instruction is actually quite good for kids. Sierra viewed learning programming as a waste of time, why learn what you can pay someone to do. As a software developer myself I think everyone should learn the basics of programming, not to write large programs but to learn computer skills that are helpful in many areas. The instructions on Khan are taught using the javascript programming language with graphical programs you can easily modify and visualize the results. She’s doing well and seems to be enjoying the subject. Maybe a remote programming gig is in order, help pay her foot of our travel bill.
Savanna just likes to give us a hard time. Teaching her math is challenging in many ways. After abusing Michelle, claiming she just can’t teach math, I was next in line. We made some progress but she said I’m no Mr P (her third grade teacher), insisting we should bring him along as her private teacher (she’s not joking). I expect weeks of adjustment for all of us, settling into an effective schooling schedule and process.
While I’ve always known teachers have a difficult job I now have new found respect for the profession. I often find myself reaching for the Ouzo (a Greek liquor) after a lesson, wondering why all teachers are not alcoholics or serial killers.
Very interesting John. At the end of this you will have earned a teaching certificate.
I’m teaching Katie Java/Android. She intends to take the AP Comp Sci exam next year. What I do to make things more interesting is a results-oriented approach using her own Android phone. We skip some of the fundamentals and go right to figuring out how to make her phone do something cool. As her app matures and grows in complexity, we add more concepts (polymorphism, inheritance, etc.) as needed.
This khan course is probably too simple for Katie at this point but your approach is exactly the same as Khan. The CS course is led by John Resig, the creator of jQuery. The lessons start with a simple concept like variables and a short, graphical program that creates an image in the browser. As you make changes to the code they are immediately visible in the graphic design, probably the reason for using JavaScript. A simple concept like variables is introduced and you are taught how to replace a hard coded number with a variable, then add a loop and increment by 1. If the number you are replacing is the images X position then you see it move across the screen. From there you can mess around on your own, see what happens. I was surprised to see Sierra spend hours trying to trick out a truck by adding a rack, bigger wheels and such. Kind of redneck but it kept her attention.
Here’s John Resig’s description of the project.
For older students Squeak is a good option, a smalltalk based environment with some of the same instant feedback and learning tools. Oddly enough it was originally created by Disney and is also used in the One Laptop Per Child project.
Maybe Sierra might like learning ruby !
http://kidsruby.com/
I like Khan Academy! I have been using it for two years with my 6yr old Son. It supplements what I go over with with him.