What I Look for in Homeschool Curriculums

1) Reality. If we are going to read historical fiction, it should be as close to reality as possible and ideally written a long time ago. Fiction should be avoided when reality is just as good. If we are going to do math, it should be based on problems that we solve in real life (this is why I love Ray's).

2) Intelligence. Anders can read children's books. If I am going to read a book to him, it should be at least high school level vocabulary, if not higher. Any program should -- grammar, logic, math, etc -- assume the child is intelligent and interested. This means it is not education disguised as fun. These types of programs are not just an insult to the child, they are a waste of time. Learning should not be "fun." It should be interesting. If you are interested in it, it does not need to be sugar-coated. Sugar coating is distracting and generally just wastes time -- which is what makes subjects boring.

We don't waste time on special projects, gluing things together or coloring pictures of historical eras and what not. We just read history books. Which is AWESOME and fascinating! Anders loves history. If I told him that today, instead of reading The Iliad, we are going to color a picture of people dressed in ancient Greek clothing, he would most likely comply, but deep down he would feel disrespected. What a waste of his time. "Work when you work, play when you play, one thing each time, that is the way," comes to mind. 

Another example: Let's say we need to practice multiplication. We can play a math game or do Mad Minute worksheets. The game is a kind-of fun way to memorize multiplication tables. The Mad Minute work sheet are an extremely effective, dry way to memorize the multiplication tables. So tell the child the choices, "We can spend thirty minutes playing this math game to practice times tables today, or you can spend two minutes doing two Mad Minute worksheets with extreme focus and then go outside to play for 28 minutes, what would you prefer?" Anders always chose the second option, and I bet almost all children would. 

If a child is seeking "fun" in his educational programs, then that needs to be addressed. Does he not understand the usefulness of what he is learning? Given good information, I have never seen children choose to dumb themselves down and waste their time.

3) Proven effectiveness. Books on unschooling sound ideal, but unschooling has not yielded results that would impress an ambitious child. Rote memorization sounds horrible! But ... it has proved to be a highly effective way to learn for over two thousand years. Montessori sounds amazing -- and has an incredible track record of success. "Progressive education" has an incredible track record of total failure. In The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America and Dare the School Build a New Social Order I learned that American education began to dumb people down starting in the 1920's, so I tend to be suspicious of anything pushed on the public after 1920.

The common core history program, which I had an early version of as a child, is horrible. I know because that's how I ended up with zero understanding of history. So I knew that was probably not the best history program to go with. When I read about how history was taught before the 1900's, I realized that is the only way history should be taught -- in order. This is one of the greatest decisions I have ever made.

I also follow the classic reading program. We do not do "language arts" which combines all aspects of reading. We do each thing separately, one at at time. We read words. We study the history and definition of words. We study how the fine motor skills of writing words. We study sentence structure. We study organizing and writing down our thoughts. These are different subjects, not one subject. 

Asians are the best at math in the world. Partly this is because their language makes math easier -- imagine if you said ten-one instead of eleven. Imagine if you said eight tens instead of eighty. Asian preschoolers can do math that English speaking preschoolers can't do just because of their language. But, English speakers can catch up. How? Well, don't do America's ridiculous common core! Do Kumon (a Japanese program) and Primary Math (a program from Singapore) and Ray's (the American program used before 1920, which is excellent).

I do not buy any program that teaches critical theory, that reality is subjective, or that redefines words or rewrites history out of a desire to be nice. I do not "nice-ify" anything about life. I do not believe children should be shielded from reality in any way. *With the exception of sex. I do not agree with modern liberal ideals of returning to hunter-gatherer style sexual freedom due to the proven effectiveness of western sexual values e.g. the monogamous-idealizing West not only obliterated the free-love hunter-gatherers, they crushed all the despotic harem-civilizations as well. So even if there are other ways to do things, monogamous family units have the best track record over time and should not be easily cast aside.

4) Reading reviews and trial and error. I use the booklist on GoodAndBeautiful.com, The Well Trained Mind, CathyDuffyReviews.com, Books Children Love, and reviews on Amazon.com to read about any program before buying it. Then I buy the best two to three programs in a subject and look through it. Sometimes I try a program and hate it. Or sometimes Anders hates it. But most of the time the effort I put in before buying anything yielded fantastic results. Anders has used the same curriculums for years -- and neither he not I have any complaints!