Monday, July 4, 2011

Educational Philosophy Discussion

We just finished up a 3-month/3-session workshop on Educational Philosophy. Lots of great ideas. The co-facilitator and I both have high schoolers and younger -- but all of the participants of the workshop were homeschoolers (with experience) and their oldest was 5 to 8 yo.

Month 1: What is an Educational Philosophy
-- including what people are comfortable with as far as education and homeschooling
-- and what areas do people feel the most unsure about
-- how do you walk through an educational philosophy, what is the definition of education, what is a successful person

Month 2: Educational Paradigms
We all have lots of educational paradigms that we may or may not recognize. Nature/nurture, providing children with lots of free time versus helping them work within a structure, etc. The ones we recognize we feel strongly about are the ones that provide direction for the type of curriculum we choose, the type of framework we feel most comfortable with. The ones that are not as well defined in our minds are the ones that make us more vulnerable to others' opinions about what works most with them.

You can take a survey about your educational paradigms here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/educational_paradigms


Month 3: Based on your definition of education, what your long term goals are, and your educational paradigms, how do you actually plan out the year? Methods of planning objectives using math as the example were discussed, along with a few sources of organizational forms.

To see handouts and discussions from this workshop, check out the wiki:
http://homeschooltopics.wikispaces.com/

No comments: