Love the real life bookshelf metaphor for curriculum. I’m still dealing with the meta of it. Also, that’s so interesting, about the history of being “well rounded”.

Re sex, porn: http://time.com/4277510/porn-and-the-threat-to-virility/?iid=toc_033116

I think there are even harder problems to solve than the problem of boys-who-grow-up-on-a-porn-diet-having-unrealistic-expectations. My husband and I have been talking about this (because he so hates the unrestricted access he grew up with and that his parents didn’t even try) and he set up a proxy server with a content filter. Right now we just have a toddler, and maybe one day soon our kids will be able to break through it, but we’re going to try to hold that off as long as possible while having an ongoing sex conversation.

It’s not just on sex that boys will have no idea what women are like. FS writer Sarah Hoyt wrote recently about how her son once wanted to be a girl because girls had more fun (and presumably this was before “Frozen” where the men are idiots and the girls are superheroes). Years later she asked him about that. It was all a lie, he said. Girls just want to hang out and talk. And when they play video games they just want to play space princesses and get rescued.

I think you’re well-rounded if you’re willing to admit there’s always something new to learn and you’re willing and able to learn it regardless of how much you think you know about something. I like the idea of determining my own curriculum to learn (self-directed learning). However, I also like to think I can learn (and enjoy it) from curriculum devised by someone else (especially by someone who is more expert). I think where curriculum may become a problem is when it becomes fixed and rigid and when it isn’t compatible with a person’s learning style. Optimally, the learner should have as much latitude as possible determining their curriculum.

Curricula for children that focuses on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills such as collaboration, communication and problem solving will be increasingly important for the workplace of the future. That’s what the research shows according to this article which references and draws from a report by the World Economic Forum – https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/5-charts-that-explain-the-future-of-education/ .
This sentence in the article – “There is limited awareness of SEL and its benefits, insufficient prioritization of SEL skills, a lack of consensus about valid and reliable SEL measurements, low levels of funding and resources for SEL, and an inadequate supply of SEL programmes and products.” – is an opportunity that homeschoolers can easily seize upon relative to those children who are enrolled in school.