The new digital literacy for digital natives

I have been working with my son on a research about perfect pitch. He was was constantly emailing hundreds of research subjects.

I told him he needs to use special software to keep track of a mailing list that big.

He told me to shut up.

After he lost track of 30 people, I went on strike. No more help until you start using a mass email service.

I thought the hardest part about helping with his research would be that I have very little science education. But I’m starting to love the science (fascinating to me: people with perfect pitch have autism.) And actually the hardest part of helping him has been predicting the reaches and limits of his digital literacy.

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Learning environment matters more than IQ or talent

My son can’t take notes and listen because he has bad working memory (doing two things at once) but he is great at memorizing, so when he’s with tutors he doesn’t take notes. He listens to the tutor and memorizes as he listens. Read more

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Classical Conversations: Multilevel marketing for homeschoolers

Parents who love to learn never talk about love of learning. Parents assume their kids have it. So the first thing I notice about Classical Conversations is the slogan on their learn more page: “Over 125,000 students worldwide are cultivating a love of learning with us.” Here are other things I noticed.

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Why is most education research so useless? Conflict of interest

Every time I read an article about public school, I assume I’ll run into research from people who have a conflict of interest. Here are three studies that made me nuts this week. Read more

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Guest post: I quit homeschool and sent my kids to private school

Guest post: I quit homeschool and sent my kids to private school

This is a guest post from a long-time reader. It stems from an email exchange we had about her kids going to a top private school for high school. I learned so much from her that I edited the emails—with her permission—into a post.

I am a single mom—very single with two sperm-donor kids—and I didn’t know anything about the world of private schools until my older son ended up in one. Except: I was hugely mistrustful of the elite environment. Read more

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Should I use Classical Curriculum? No. It sucks.

Before we can even talk about the merits of Classical Curriculum we need to talk about the mob-like business of creating confusion to generate profit.

There are laws governing trademarks so that people don’t trademark names that cause confusion. For example, people constantly grab Penelope Trunk when there is a new social platform, and they think I will buy the account from them. But I can just write an email to the owners of the platform and they will give me my name because giving anyone else my name will be purposely causing confusion for the consumer.

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Why homeschooling fails when it comes to diversity

The case against Harvard that’s going through the court system right now is fascinating. Rejected candidates are suing Harvard for systematic discrimination, and in order to defend itself, Harvard had to reveal salacious details of its arcane system for ranking applicants. Read more

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Homeschooling is harder if you don’t get along with women

If you are a woman who gets along better with men than women, you know who you are.

Girls became weirder and weirder to you. Until you found your spot with the intellectuals. The logical thinkers. The people who did math and science, perhaps. Or the people who memorized stuff. The groups that—science explains—are mostly boys. Read more

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Try low-brow art as an on-ramp to cultural literacy

Try low-brow art as an on-ramp to cultural literacy

Did you always dream of playing video games with your kids all day long? Then homeschooling is your dream come true! The whole family can learn together!

But for everyone else, homeschooling turns out to be each family member learning on their own, because if you want to learn what someone else wants you to learn, you can just go to school.

It took me a while to admit that my kids are not interested in any of the things I thought we’d be learning together. In my dream of homeschooling utopia, my kids and I would study intricate artworks hour after hour. But once I faced the truth, I noticed that complexity annoys the kids, and low-brow innovation intrigues them. So here are some ways I got my teenage sons to pay attention to art.

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Join me (and my kids!) in Aspergers heaven

This post is about a new course I’m doing. Oct 22.

But first, I have stuff to say. I recently wrote about the breakfast table effect, which explains why kids who have great science projects before college have parents who are scientists: they talk about science over breakfast because that’s what the parents like to talk about. Read more

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