Why 1st Step is Needed

    

Why 1st Step Is Needed

On our Yahoo! International Support Group, I was asked why 1st Step is needed if Connect The Thoughts covers the educational ground. The questioner posed a hypothetical -- that we should not be teaching children much before age ten. Here's my answer:

Let me see if I can answer your question. First, I'd like to take the hypothetical away - the law requires we educate our children from a young age. Perhaps in the best of all possible worlds this would not be the case. But like you, I live in this world. We are required to provide education to our children, generally starting at around age six. This means we are required to determine what it is we're going to do to educate our children from age six. The options are public school, private school, home school, and a life fleeing the truant officer and Child Services. 1st Step courses were in part authored because I'm all too aware of this unavoidable reality.

So, given that we must educate our very young, what should that education accomplish?

For ages 4-6, I decided a number of things were important enough to create curricula. First, it's a tough world. Children that young can be easily made the victims of their own ignorance. It is a parent's first and most important job to keep their children safe until their children can do so for themselves. So, I wanted to author some courses that would help teach the youngest children how to be safe, and how to best survive at their age in this world we live in. The value of the "Living Your Life" courses for ages 4-6 (Starter) is contained in this idea. At this level, these courses are intended to add survival factors and make the child and parent's life easier and saner. I'll get into ages 7-8 a little later.

If you read a lot of the posts here (I've read all your lovely posts), you know that there are many ten year olds and older who are struggling in terms of literacy. Too many. I first encountered this phenomenon when I taught High School for Los Angeles Unified School District, some 27 years ago. I encountered a perfectly bright and intelligent 17 year old who simply could read nothing, and could not sign his own name. I thought at the time that he was an anomaly. He wasn't. Read the posts on this site and you'll see, lack of literacy is an epidemic and one of its most crucial symptoms in the United States is a drop-out rate in our public schools of over 50% across the country.

To start Connect The Thoughts Lower School, a student must read moderately well for their age group. I think the most important educational assignment we have with children up to age nine is in the area of literacy, period. I've tutored and taught too many 10 year olds who simply couldn't read Story Of Mankind without effort. Literacy should be solved by age nine, and all the Elementary courses (ages 8-9) are constructed to do exactly this. Elementary was built to improve literacy. It is the primary goal of 1st Step Elementary curricula. Elementary's secondary goal is to educate in the areas each course specializes in (history, science, etc), on a level acceptable to the child. It's third (and critical) goal is to validate the young student's ability to think and work and have ideas and opinions. Schooling almost always thoroughly invalidates a student. After an eight year old has taken enough tests, been told he was wrong a thousand times, been informed his ideas were uneducated and even unwelcome...well, why should such a child keep trying when they're going to be slammed down repeatedly? Few children have the resilience to survive such an emotional and intellectual pummeling. Few adults, too. 1st Step is constructed to encourage the student to have ideas and express them. (Starter/Elementary Creative Writing is there to help the student express his/her ideas, and is constructed uniquely with limited literacy in mind.) We need to reverse the results of current education in our children, and let them know their ideas and opinions are valued. Doing Lower and Upper School Connect The Thoughts successfully absolutely depends upon this!

Our world says "no". It says no to adult and child alike. You want more money, more work, more R&R, more love, and the world says "no", or "maybe later", or "ya' got to work for it"...and you work like a dog and most of the time the world still says no. It takes a special type of toughness to keep creating and expressing one's self after being told no often enough. "No" is a pretty soul-killing word.

The world says no to our children every day. "You're too small to...", and "maybe when you're older...", and so on.

Education should say YES. YES, dive in, have fun, use that thing above your shoulders and see how far it will take you, express those clever buzzings in your brain and let's see how they might change your world. Education (and families as much as possible while keeping a child safe) should say YES YES YES!

We want strong-souled children that can do a little bit of spitting in the world's eye when needed. That's survival. It's also people who can see and think and express for themselves their own observations and ideas that change things for the better. History teaches nothing if not that it is the hard-working, inspired INDIVIDUAL who comes up with the world-changing invention or idea or work of art. Contrary to some moron's ideas, Shakespeare clearly authored his masterpieces alone. Bach wrote as much as 45 minutes of music a week alone, and then orchestrated and performed it. Science is a parade of individuals who did not accept common "wisdom". If this had not been the case, we would still blindly accept Aristotle's conviction that the heavens above were painted on glass globes revolving around the Earth, and we'd be dying by the many more hundreds of millions of diseases long since conquered.

I simply think that we have drastically underestimated two things:

1. What a four year old or six year old or eight year old CAN learn and is capable of; and
2. What they need to know to keep their eyes on the horizon every time the world says "no" to them.

There is a lot to be said for the child who is what schools used to call "self-starters", yes. I was one. I read voraciously when I was young and wanted to know everything without limits. I still do. But I'm kind of gnarly and mean-spirited and have never taken "no" for an answer. I think most children need some aid in that area. For a self starter, 1st Step will provide ample opportunity and tools to express their ideas and develop them, perhaps the second best thing we can do for this age group - provide opportunities to successfully explore - after generating literacy. I believe this approach will help build children and young adults who have faith in their own vision. This civilization is going to need a LOT of people like that if it's not to collapse of its own weight and bizarre inertia over the next fifty years.

On a deeply pragmatic level, today's educational environment is far more complex than when I went to school. The amount of information floating around out there is multiplying very rapidly. Study skills for the young are essential by age nine, as they simply have so much to learn! "Living Your Life" Elementary (ages 7-8) is constructed to help the student manage essential life skills, including basic research skills. It's almost too late by age nine to start teaching a child how to study or learn today. It also teaches basic survival skills like how to handle money. Today, kids eight years old have money in their pockets! (I used to carry a peanut butter sandwich. And I didn't even like peanut butter...) It's probably a good idea to teach them what money actually is (something most adults don't really understand) and how to handle it, as an example of the sort of thing covered.

Now, why teach a very young child history or science? They'll learn these thoroughly in Connect The Thoughts . Well, honestly, I'm less interested in teaching history or science to children ages 4-8 than in teaching them the relevancy of history and science, or the value of their own ideas.

It has been said that "All history is prelude". America's greatest historian, Will Durant (I think the greatest historian of all time) certainly felt that an understanding of history was necessary to any kind of an understanding of today or tomorrow. I use history and science at the 1st Step Level to accomplish a few things;

1. Make the student read read read;
2. Demand that the student think through issues and develop viewpoints and opinions unique to them and relevant to today's world and their own lives; and
3. To get the student by degree to take over their own education.

I believe that these are three noble goals for the age group, and I believe they are educationally optimum for the age group.

1st Step simply has different goals than Connect The Thoughts , and sets up the student to succeed in Connect The Thoughts or in whatever they study next. Its methodology is not the same as Connect The Thoughts . In fact, Starter methodology is very different in certain respects from Elementary. They're "specialized" to generate specific, targeted results, as described above.

Well, I think that's probably enough! I hope this answers your question. I would only ask that we leave hypotheticals out of any discussion about education. We need to solve the problems of education in this world, right now and as things are.

Thanks for the tough question!

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

What's Wrong with Schools and Right with Home School?

    

In our current educational system, almost every school, public or private, relies heavily on certain tools which actually hinder the desired result of education. These include the obvious, overcrowded classrooms, non-standardized curricula, under-trained and unmotivated teachers, the "bad guys" everyone points at. But there are other subtly destructive ideas at work. These include grading , grade levels and homework .

When a teacher gives a grade, be it for a test or a semester, the teacher has admitted his failure. Why didn't every student learn the requisite materials? The students were there . Every "B" issued is the teacher and school's way of saying "we taught this student MOST of the materials". And an "F"? They're admitting that they haven't a clue how to teach your child that subject.

Many courses are graded on a "bell curve", in which a certain percentage of students MUST receive an "A", a "B", and so forth. Who determined the percentages? What do you do with a class that is almost entirely "expert", give some of them "F"s? How about the class that is generally sub-standard, whatever the "standard" may be? Give a percentage "A"s when they can't sign their names? It happens!

Grades pigeonhole a child. Your student is "bright" or "slow" or "below average". According to what scale? Who determines the criteria?

What's wrong with Grade Levels? Children are tossed into a group because they are the same age, and supposedly that alone will allow them to study well together. But what happens is the fastest or brightest students "slow down", so they don't soar ahead of the group. Slower students become "remedial". The "average" student, whatever that is decided to be by whoever is in charge, is the governor regarding speed of study.

And homework? When you, an adult, complete your eight hours of work, and you head home, do you want more work to do? If a school can't get enough information communicated in a standard day of school, what ARE they doing? When should a student pursue his own interests? Music...theatre...sports? When are they allowed control over their own time, their own lives? Who decided it was alright for a school to become the vast bulk of the child's activities? And don't be fooled into thinking that it's "number of hours spent" that determine an education. It's not. It's "amount of information acquired, understood and ready to be used" .

Home school places the control over the student's education back where it belongs...with the student and their parents or guardians. It allows the student to study in a safe environment...something few schools can claim they create, not with a straight face. It eliminates the need for grade levels, or homework. It allows student and parent to design a schedule the student can succeed with. It allows the student to move at his or her own pace, without comparisons or stigma. It allows the student to avoid grades, when the home school system used is a wise one. And the big "problem" with home school, that much-overrated concern, "socialization", is readily resolved by extra-curricular activities such as sports and music studies, and the fact that the student will have far more discretionary hours in a week!

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

Video Part 2 - About Connect The Thoughts Curriculum

    

This is the final segment of a two-part video interview of Connect The Thoughts author Steven David Horwich hosted by Jessica Stirling . If you have not viewed the initial segment of the interview, view here first!

     Raymond Korns, Webmaster
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

Video Part 1 - About Connect The Thoughts Curriculum

    

This is the first part of a two-part video interview of Connect The Thoughts author Steven David Horwich hosted by Jessica Stirling .

To see the final segment of the interview, including William Horwich view here!

     Raymond Korns, Webmaster
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

Video - Why We Need a New Curriculum

    

The following is part of a series of videos with Connect The Thoughts author Steven David Horwich .

NOTE: This video series was recorded in 2005, some of the information has evolved since this recording.

     Raymond Korns, Webmaster
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

The Evil of Evaluation in Education -- The Student as a Person

    

You have a bright, active child. They're interested. The world is new and fascinating for them, every day. They get up each morning assuming that life will be an adventure. So it should be.

Then they go to school.

For many students, the adventure turns into grim punishment. They find themselves COMPARED. They're "slow in math". They're "remedial" in science or reading. They're "behind their grade level". They're too tall, too friendly, they're religious. They're "hyperactive". In short, the student is "different-bad", of far less value, they and their parents are informed, than was believed. With "authority", the teacher and principle and school psychologist state that your child "needs help", in the form of additional organizational controls over the student's life...more time cracking the books, more homework, "special" classes, counseling, Ritalin. The student is not special, he is a "problem". The world is not fascinating, it's threatening. A life of self-doubt and even drug addiction (prescribed and sanctioned) has begun. (And, not to be too dramatic, but has there been a shooting in a school in the last ten years committed by a student who was not undergoing psychiatric "care", most or all of them drugged? Doesn't seem so.)

Being energetic, bright, having interests is not a detriment, except to overwhelmed teachers with thirty students every hour, and inundated schools trying to service hundreds or thousands of parents and students. The extraordinary student (every student) requires time and attention. Students with unique life interests and vitality are not the "public" targeted by most modern educational systems. Institutions handle numbers, not individuals. Their methods and curricula are designed to service the average, or to keep all students at the level of the lowest common denominator, so "no child is left behind".

Only every student is an individual. Every student, without exception, has unique skills, ideas and needs which should be addressed and satisfied by their education. Every student works best at his or her unique pace, studying in a way that challenges them to think and grow and evaluate for themselves as individuals. This is one of the thrusts behind the meteoric growth of home schooling worldwide.

The parent sees their child, and knows. Here is a unique and deserving individual to be valued, not "made to fit in", and not controlled!

A rational look at education pinpoints the need for the student to receive information which the student is then allowed to evaluate. What is the value of this information to the student? How can he or she use that information? This sort of educational approach is impossible in a classroom, where individual brightness and creativity must be crushed in favor of the overall "progress" of the group. Students in the classroom who don't quite fit, who are too fast or slow or different, must be squeezed into the pace and shape of their fellow "numbers". That's how schools survive, and students fail.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

The Challenges and Glories of Home Schooling

    

Education is a deeply personal and intimate thing. Governmental testing and educational "standards" can only depersonalize and make more inhuman a failed system and its products --our children. This has, in fact, been the result of governmental testing since it began. How can a government's standards or tests ever take into account your child's interests, creativity, strengths and needs? They cannot and they do not. They never will. These tests are another thing that need to go, and soon, if our civilization is to recover from this educational debacle.

Home school families are an unusual and determined bunch. They are accordingly, unusually challenged and rewarded. The challenges are many, including issues of finance, governmental restrictions, time, method of study and what to study (curriculum), each of which we'll discuss below.

In the end, the reward home school families receive is revived control over the educational fate of their children. Home schooling restores control over the potential future of the student into the hands of those who care most about him or her.

Financial Concerns And Governmental Restrictions

One of the more obvious sets of challenges is financial. Forced to pay taxes that contribute to schools they do not use, home school families must also bear the expense of home school education. Families sending children to private schools face similar double expense, though home schoolers rarely pay as much as private school education requires. After all, home schoolers don't have an entire school to support, with administrators and janitors and what have you. The home school family has only the students in their house to support. However, the need to employ tutors can offset what may be otherwise inexpensive.

Thinking in long term solutions, one needed political movement would refund our educational tax dollars if we chose not to avail ourselves of traditional schools...a choice being made by thousands of new families every month, as the over 50% national drop out rate in the United States attests to. Confronting members of Congress with a united front might bring some attention to this inequity. And please note that there are millions of home schoolers in America alone! We can be a force and we can insist on our rights. I imagine similar movements may benefit many other nations. Money spent to support schools which home school families have no intention of using could be far better spent on terrific home school experiences under the control of the parent and student. After all, who knows your student and their needs better than you and your student?

Governments have proven almost universally awful at deciding how to best spend your money. However, they are far worse at establishing workable educational "standards" which produce good results with your money. The flood of illiteracy our schools have set loose on the world is hard to ignore or miss, but in the United States, the schools cannot seem to reverse the problem. No one seems to be worse at this business of education than government. Yet they insist they have the right to continue to take your educational dollars. Well, if the military made bombs that blew up in their own faces, would we keep funding them? If Fire Departments started fires, would we fund them or lock them up? Yet, we continue to fund public education as it leads a huge number of our children into educational oblivion. And if you don't think this will blow up in our civilization's face, please think again about the cost of supporting an undereducated generation or two. Numbers don't lie. Home school students almost universally outperform public school students in those dreadful "standardized" tests. And the majority of public school students in America...quit. They are certainly "undereducated", as they are not educated.

The control of educational dollars should have always rested in families who are, in the end, responsible for their children and their education. Surrendering this financial control has placed our children and their future in the hands of government. This is a mistake we should rectify.

Sadly, the problem goes far deeper than money. Government often acts, as the California State Legislature recently did, to limit home school rights, a move our governor is deeply opposed to, bless him.

Where does this bizarre governmental need to restrict home school come from? Is it really born of a concern over the home school child's welfare, when all the government's own tests clearly show that these children are educationally, culturally, and emotionally superior to their public school friends? Hmmm. After all, government does need to protect their considerable investment in public schooling. They can't admit that they have been failing our children after all these decades and all that expense, can they? This is a classic case of "throwing good money after bad", as well as placing the "wolf in charge of the hen house."

Time

Another challenge facing home school families is one of time. It's easy and "time efficient" to turn Junior over to the local school for daytime care and some semblance of education. It's hard to take on those responsibilities yourself if you're a working parent or worse, a working single parent. One answer that has worked for many people is to form small home school "conglomerates", groups of parents who each agree to assist in specific ways and to share in the administration of as many as, say, 10 home school children in a group. I've done this personally, with great success, for over two years at a time.

By the way, as a system this only works well when taking full advantage of home schooling's strengths. These include the fact that each student is allowed to study his own studies at his own pace, and is not forced into a "classroom mold" where every student, quick, average or challenged, must be at the same place in their studies as is done in classrooms around the world. The fact that a student does not need to "keep up", or "get ahead", or be forced into a mold of any kind is one of the great potential strengths of home school.

On the issue of time commitment, it also helps to have the full agreement of your children to home school. Home schooling is a deeply responsible activity. In fact, the home school parent and student are saying that they will take full responsibility for the student's education. The home school parent is also taking responsibility for the child's safety, something too many schools have failed miserably at, and to great sorrow.

Home schooling is an act requiring a high degree of trust. The student trusts you to make certain he'll receive a full and effective education. But the parent must also trust the student to honestly and completely do the work which the parent has so laboriously scouted and vetted.

As a student matures, you have the right to expect him or her to carry a larger percentage of the load of their educational effort. But the student has the right to expect the parent or teacher to continuously support and challenge him, and failing this, the student has the right to express dissatisfaction. After all, we're asking the student to make a considerable investment of time and energy. It is in the student's behalf, true, but that is true only if the student is provided methods and study materials and an environment that improve him! Failing this, home school is just school again.

Keeping in this sort of agreement between the student and you (and a tutor, etc) will eventually turn over the bulk of the work to the student, preventing home school from becoming so time-intensive for the parent or tutor as to be unworkable. I've home schooled my son for over six years, and I have seen this to be so with him, and with other home school families.

Your point of view is important, too. You can consider this work, or drudgery; or quality time with your child. You pick.

Method Of Study And Curriculum

Taking education out of the hands of schools is one thing. Replacing schools with a real educational opportunity is another, and there awaits the rocks that many home school families founder on. After all, the parent thinks, what do I know? Don't the schools specialize in education?

No, actually, schools seem to specialize in being paid. When I worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I had a perfectly wonderful 17 year old student who was admirable in every respect, only he could neither read nor write. He signed his name with an "X". I had him in an English Elective course, and insisted he be held back and helped. I was told that in no uncertain terms, he would receive a passing grade (in a course all about reading) because if I failed him, the school would not be paid.

How can you, the parent, do a worse job than this for your child? You can't and you won't.

So, what can you offer a home school student? You can do as many parents do and piece together study materials from various sources. Many publishers offer "curriculum", and in nearly any area you'd care to study. But I believe a home school curricula should accomplish far more than the run-of-the-mill materials generally offered, often in poor imitation of the curricula offered in schools!

First, an agreement must be made with the student to study so many hours a week. This minimum is often established by law. But make the student understand that there will be no home work, as all his work IS homework. So the 3-5 hours or so of school done per day is it, and the student will have far more free and discretionary time than he did in school. This is based on honest, diligent study.

A workable home school curriculum would be contiguous, one course leading organically and logically into the next so that the student always knew his grasp of the subject was expanding. It would not leap arbitrarily back and forth through subjects, but semester by semester would penetrate steadily and deeper into the materials and subject, allowing the student to use what he increasingly knows and understands, and apply his growing awareness to new information.

A good curriculum would ask the student to challenge the information it taught. This would be done constantly, to assure that the student was not accepting info by rote, or because he's "supposed to", or to prepare to spit answers out for a test. We want students who learn to evaluate information on their own, and successfully. We want students who accept information because they've tested it and found it to be true. This is an invaluable life skill.

The information and the materials would be challenging, at a level considered "too difficult" for the age range doing it, but set up in such a way that they could successfully study it. You probably know that education has been severely "dumbed down"? There was a time, decades ago, when 10 year olds learned to read and speak not only English, but also Latin. Considering this sad reality, a good curriculum would provide a learning experience in excess of todays accepted range of experience for each age group.

In a good curriculum, the student would not merely read information, but ways would be found to have the student "experience" information for the sake of clarity and the student's own evaluation of the info. Such a curriculum would place a premium on creativity, both within the curricula and the student. It would also place the student in charge of his own thoughts and understandings.

A good curriculum for home school parents would be laid out so as to be easily used by student and tutor. Tests, answer guides and complete lesson plans would all be "tutor proof", so long as the step-by-step plan was followed. This would allow a tutor who knows little about a subject to continue to assist the student as a facilitator, as the course would be doing the actual teaching. (This works equally well in a classroom or group, by the way, so long as each student studies at their own pace.)

A good home school curriculum would fully replace school and what schools do with studies structured for the student to truly succeed, year after year. It would act like a river of study and learning that the student travels from the start to the finish of his or her educational journey. It would not force the parent or tutor to endlessly cobble together bits and pieces from a hundred sources, but would instead provide a comprehensive and coordinated set of studies, ready for use.

In the end, home school is a lot of work, and can be a frightening road to start down. But your child is the best reason to home school, and perhaps the most important result of home schooling is control over your child's fate restored into your hands, and your child's.

Who should have control over your child's future? The state, which does not and will never know your child's name, or you?

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

Science versus Religion

    

As to science vs religion, I work hard to make certain they're each presented with fairly equal weight, especially when the ideas presented conflict. The whole point is to allow the student to think for themselves, and determine what THEY wish to believe. I don't think education should "indoctrinate" in any direction whatsoever, it should instead present ideas, data, and viewpoints, and allow the student to dig in and live their own lives, forming their own ideas and reactions to the world, including the world of ideas and information, and taking responsibility for their self-determined beliefs and decisions.

Most of us have our own beliefs. I think most of you are aware that the CTT curriculum is not "faith based". But it's not anything-based, other than its focus on the student and his/her ability to perceive and consider. When discussing science, the courses present a purely scientific set of datums and viewpoints, and I try to present the best information, carefully correlated, that I can find. When discussing religion, I try to keep the subject purely that religion being considered.

I make it a point in my life to NOT critique the beliefs of others, but to make sure instead that I understand their beliefs, and then it's "live and let live" after that. I'm happy when a person in this world believes in SOMETHING, ANYTHING, whether it's God, atoms, or that God made atoms. I've spent my life creating as a writer, which has forced me to study nearly every religion and science with intensity. Personally, I respect anyone who believes anything and invests themselves into it, and who is somehow making the world a better place in which to live. This curriculum is, in fact, one thing that I believe in, and that I intend to use to improve conditions. I hope you find it useful.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

How To Home School

    

Every day, hundreds of families decide to leave public and private schools. They pull their children out for many reasons. Some of the key difficulties people have with schools today include poor educational results, high requirements as to hours of study, inadequate curriculum, inadequate educational methodology, unhappiness with educational restrictions, the evaluation and drugging of children by school psychiatrists, and an increasingly unsafe school environment.

Sometimes, families consider the change for a while. Sometimes the change over to home school is abrupt, as it was for my family six years ago. Regardless, the switch to home school can be a shock to an entire family. It's one thing to drop a child off in the morning and pick him up in the afternoon, and have his schooling "handled". It's quite another thing to have to take hands-on, full responsibility for the student's schedule, discipline, work space, material needs, what and how to study, and of course, supervision. To find yourself as a parent suddenly responsible for issues of this magnitude, and to know that YOU are now your child's best (and only) hope for a true education, can be daunting. I'll take up ways and means to accomplish all of the above later in this article.

That said, millions of students and families have made this transition successfully. And in spite of what "authorities" tell you, home schooling is traditional education. Throughout history, far more children have been home schooled than institutionally educated.

So first, let's look at some of the barriers schools impose on students which can be dropped or reversed by the home school family, as a part of your effort to create a constructive and effective educational experience. Some of these "accepted" modes of education which are actually destructive of the ends of education may surprise you.

In our current educational system, almost every school, public or private, relies heavily on certain tools which actually hinder the desired result of education. These include the obvious, overcrowded classrooms, non-standardized curricula, under- trained and unmotivated teachers, dangerous schools - the "bad guys" everyone points at.

OVERCROWDED CLASSROOMS

Everyone knows that classrooms with 20 or more students are simply not conducive to a good educational result. In an hour, the student will have an average of 3 minutes per student, and if the classroom (as is the case in California where I live) has over 30 students per, that's two minutes per student...not including time spent on educating the class as a whole, scoring papers and tests, etc. This is a system doomed to fail the student from the very start. How would YOU have done in a difficult subject with a teacher who had a minute per day for your problems?

Home school remedies this problem instantly and completely. Even should you form a small home school group (recommended), it's unlikely you'll have more than five or six students. One parent or tutor, in a four hour school day, can provide a single student massive amounts of assistance compared to schools, even if the tutor is only available for one hour!

NON STANDARDIZED METHODOLOGY AND CURRICULA

Non-standardized methods and curriculum of teaching are, of course an epidemic throughout the education "market". There are as many ways to teach as there are teachers. Teachers are generally required to either locate an existing curriculum and "adapt" it to the needs of the particular school or district, or to create a curricula themselves. This means that curricula is going to change from classroom to classroom! And pity the student who must move schools! Whatever he learned in his last school is often considered without value because it simply is not the NEW school's curricula or criteria. And needless to say, if course work is being pieced together using a hundred sources, and these materials aren't coordinated in any way from year to year and classroom to classroom, even within a subject you're not likely to have much continuity. Unfortunately, it's the student who must try to unravel the mess of expectations coming his direction from multiple classrooms and instructors.

Home schooling immediately terminates this confusion. There is only one "classroom" in home school. There is unlikely to be more than one "teacher" or "tutor". And the curricula used will be coordinated by a single source, the parent or teacher in charge. Of course, this does not solve the problem of what curriculum to use, and what methods to employ in its use.

I've worked on this problem for nine years, and my answer is a comprehensive curriculum called Connect The Thoughts, for students ages 9-adult, and 1st Step, for students ages 4-8. This is a river of courses, one leading to another, in areas such as history, science, creative writing, life and study essentials, arts, and current events. These courses, broken into daily Lesson Plans made of carefully designed steps, have proven to be easily used and remarkably effective, especially for the home schoolers they're designed for. You can find out more about them at connectthethoughts.net. Courses for students ages 9-adult can be purchased and downloaded instantly from currclick.com. and my1ststep.com. Courses for students ages 4-8. These curricula, with a good math and grammar program, truly do solve the problem of how and what to teach.

TEACHER PROBLEMS

As to teachers in schools, obviously there are many wonderful teachers out there. But even the best teachers within our schools are burdened by a system which stifles their creativity, disallows any real exchange with students outside of the most cursory, limits their time commitment to each student to a pittance, and forces them to use "tools" which degrade and demoralize teacher and student alike. And not all teachers fall under the category of "the best". There are many people teaching who should not be. This has often been a motivating factor for families to leave schools. Needless to say, in a public school situation, the teachers your children will work with this year are a crap shoot. YOU, the parent, will certainly have no control over it.

Home school allows the parent to select the "teacher", whether it will be a parent or an outsider. It places the selected teacher in the enviable position of having real time with a single student, or small group of students. It accordingly provides the student far more one-on-one attention. Everyone wins where, in a school situation, far more often than not, everyone loses. In the United States, the school drop out rate nationally in well over 50%! Clearly, in school situations, there are simply too many people losing.

DANGEROUS SCHOOLS

Do we need to look again at the tidal wave of violence filling our schools? Do we need to reference the metal detectors at the gated entrances of our increasingly prison-like "institutions of learning"? Is there a school in any city that is free of drugs? And isn't it all too obvious that your children are safer in their own home?

The above describes the obvious problems of organizational education, and spells out how each of these are solved by home schooling.

But there are other subtly destructive ideas at work, ideas long broadly accepted as integral to education, but factually standing at the core of our problems. These include grading, grade levels and homework.

GRADES

When a teacher gives a grade, be it for a test or a semester, the teacher has admitted his own failure. Why didn't every student learn the requisite materials? The students were there. Every "B" issued is the teacher and school's way of saying "we taught this student MOST of the materials". And an "F"? They're admitting that they haven't a clue how to teach your child that subject.

Many courses are graded on a "bell curve", in which a certain percentage of students MUST receive an "A", a "B", and so forth. Who determined the percentages? What do you do with a class that is almost entirely "expert", give some of them "F"s? How about the class that is generally sub-standard, whatever the "standard" may be? Give a percentage "A"s when they can't sign their names? It happens! Grades pigeonhole a child. Your student is "bright" or "slow" or "below average". According to what scale? Who determines the criteria?

Home schooling provides you the opportunity to drop grades from your educational vocabulary. You should not care what a child's grades are or ought to be, as a parent. Rather, your concern should be that your child learns to learn, to understand and use information to forward their own survival and the survival of those they love. A letter on a piece of paper is not a result that is important in the real world. The only tests your children should have to pass are taken as a part of daily life. A good heart, a bright mind, a creative interest in the world and an industriously used day are passing grades.

GRADE LEVELS

What's wrong with Grade Levels? Rather ask what's right. Children are tossed into a group because they are the same age, and supposedly that alone will allow them to study well together.

But what happens is the fastest or brightest students "slow down", so they don't soar ahead of the group. Slower students become "remedial". The "average" student, whatever that is decided to be by whoever is in charge, is the governor regarding speed of study.

Home school needs take no notice of "grade levels". Your child is a student, not a "third grader". There are no real groups to throw him in, so no labels need be applied. When people ask what grade Junior is in, you can always say whatever grade his age group is in.

HOMEWORK

And homework? When you, an adult, complete your eight hours of work, and you head home, do you want more work to do? If a school can't get enough information communicated in a standard day of school, what are they doing? When should a student pursue his own interests? Music...theatre...sports? When are they allowed control over their own time, their own lives? Who decided it was alright for a school to become the vast bulk of the child's activities? And don't be fooled into thinking that it's "number of hours spent" that determine an education. It's not. It's "amount of information acquired, understood and ready to be used".

Home school places the control over the student's education back where it belongs... with the student and their parents or guardians. It allows the student to study in a safe environment...something few schools can claim they create, not with a straight face. It eliminates the need for grade levels, or homework. It allows student and parent to design a schedule the student can succeed with. It allows the student to move at his or her own pace, without comparisons or stigma. It allows the student to avoid grades, when the home school system used is a wise one. And the big "problem" with home school, that much-overrated concern, "socialization", is readily resolved by extra-curricular activities such as sports and music studies, and the fact that the student will have far more discretionary hours in a week!

FIRST -- Make the decision to home school. It's a huge commitment! Make certain your student(s) agree, or it's likely you'll fail. Home schooling is often reliant for its success on the willing and eager participation of the student. It is far more "student based" than school. In making this decision, decide as well WHO will be responsible for working with the student(s) and when and how! If you can't solve this problem, you probably can't home school.

SECOND -- Research the requirements. Every state and country has its own rules and restrictions regarding home school. You will need to do whatever is needed to legally to qualify for home school. In the United States there are many organizations found easily on the Internet which sign up your child for a small fee and take care of the legal requirements. You will need to keep attendance records. You should keep ALL your student's school work, dated, as proof of work done.

THIRD -- Decide where in your home you will turn over to education, for at least 3-4 hours a day. Set up the space to accommodate the needs of home school. These will doubtless include a working computer attached to the Internet, and a printer. You will need storage for books and course work. Good light is a must, and a space without strong odors or distractions. A globe, rulers, pens, pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, paper, folders, art supplies will all be needed. Several good dictionaries for the student's level of reading are a good idea, though a lot of these are available free over the Internet.

FOURTH -- Select curriculum and related materials. If you're interested in my answer to the problem of curriculum, you'll find it at connectthethoughts.net for ages 9-adult and my1ststep.com for ages 4-8.

FIFTH -- Establish a schedule. Generally, you should figure on roughly 180 days a year of work. I divide this into two semesters, each about 20 weeks long. Figure in holidays. Try to schedule your child's school to coordinate with the public school's schedule, so he or she will be free to see friends at their breaks. A daily schedule will be determined by the curriculum used, and the minimum required by your state and nation, and should coordinate with the tutor's schedule, and the student's extra-curricular activities.

SIXTH -- Plan enough extra-curricular activities (dance classes, sports, play, whatever) to balance the "stay home" quality of home schooling.

SEVEN -- Start. Keep all your records up to date. Have fun! Treat the time spent with your student as "quality time". It is! Enjoy the part you're playing in guaranteeing your child's future.

ON-GOING -- You should look over lesson plans at least a week or two ahead to determine what materials you'll need, or field trips might be beneficial. Make sure any requisite tests and scoring are done, determined by your curricula.

SUGGESTIONS -- I STRONGLY suggest you take a largely non-critical view of your student's work, especially in artistic endeavors where a bit of criticism can shut tight the door of interest.

Watch each student work for an hour a week, if you are the parent or guardian. Are they enjoying the work, or has it descended into drudgery? How are the tutor and student getting along? Do the tutor's reports to you, which you should receive in writing and weekly, seem accurate as to your child's progress? You know your child best.

I STRONGLY suggest minimizing TV on school days or on nights before school. I STRONGLY suggest eliminating computer games completely. They're a brain drain and a time eater.

I STRONGLY suggest you keep track of your student's sleep. Tired students are bad and frustrating students.

If your student struggles, have their eyes and ears checked by a doctor. I can't tell you how many times in over 35 years as an educator I've discovered or suspected a hearing or vision insufficiency and been proven correct.

Avoid evaluations of your child of any sort other than needed medical evaluations, as possible. Avoid psychiatric evaluations unless they're unavoidable by law. Drugging a child to control their emotions or enthusiasm or lack thereof are terrible answers to problems. Far better answers include a review of diet. Sugar can do terrible things to a child. Allergies can change behavior. A change of diet is going to be far better for a child than the administering of a drug like Ritalin, and may have a far better impact on his life and well-being. There are many fine nutritionalists who can help you with this.

LET YOUR STUDENT STUDY AT THEIR OWN PACE. Don't sweat over progress too often. Let the student progressively take responsibly for their own studies and life. This is exactly where education is supposed to take them, isn't it?

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

Home School Saved!

    

In California, on Friday, August 8 ^th , the 2 ^nd District Court of Appeal reversed a dreadful decision it had made in February.

The first decision the Court approved made it illegal to home school a child in California unless someone in the room had a teaching credential. The reversal of this decision allows over 166,000 California Home Schoolers to enjoy what should be sacred rights, without the threat of government determining whether or not parents may decide what sort of education their children receive.

The first decision certainly would have benefited our wildly under- performing schools in California, schools which routinely show at the bottom of results when compared to other states in testing. And this is testing entirely slanted toward what our public schools supposedly deliver in the way of education. Children would have been forced to return to these schools by the tens of thousands, schools already (by their own admission) overburdened and dangerous. Let us please remember that laws supposedly exist to provide a fair playing field for citizens, protecting their rights. The law exists to serve the people. The people were never intended to service the law, or government. In what way was the court serving the people with this decision?

Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger praised the reversal by the 2nd District Court of Appeal as a victory for students and parental rights. He and top state Democrat Jerry Brown worked together to drag this case back into the courts, and are both to be highly commended for protecting not just the rights of Californians. The grim truth is that, as California goes, so often goes the nation...and then other nations follow.

But why were our rights threatened in the first place? Regardless of the relative success or failure of public education, when did the right to determine how our children are educated become the property of the state? This could only happen in an environment where "we, the people" are simply not united.

One powerful reason we are not united is that politics and religion in America are generally employed in the United States in a divisive manner. But regardless of political or religious persuasion, there are at least five points that I believe most parents agree on, particularly home school parents;

1. Parents, not the state, should have the largest degree of authority over their children.
   
   
2. Parents should have a strong hand not just as to educational processes and methods, but also educational content. Our schools, public and private, are generally forced to avoid certain subject matter (such as religion, and political theory) and to adhere to testing standards that, to put it mildly, are far too limited in scope.
   
   A very telling case in point : My son recently passed the California State test for high school. In that test, there were no history questions, no science questions, no questions about the arts or culture of any kind, no questions about how one plans to live their life, no questions about skills that may have been acquired during the process of receiving an "education", nothing that would verify that a student is actually prepared to leave high school!
   
   What did the test question? Basic grammar, the silliest and most basic reading comprehension skills that my boy quite literally scoffed at (and that would have been considered elementary skills to school children 50 years ago), and mathematics; that was petty much all he needed to know according to the state.
   
   Exactly what are our schools "training" our children to be? Good McDonald's employees? Kind of looks that way, doesn't it?
   
   This disgusting standard was the educational result our court was determined to enforce!
   
   Clearly the schools and the "system" should not be allowed to limit the horizons of our children. In fact, their one and only job should be to expand those horizons. Yet, the courts in California attempted to grant these same self-serving schools nearly the only right to educate in California! And they are self-serving -- they get paid per student in attendance, be they public or private schools.
   
   
   
3. Children are generally brighter than the schools assume.
   
   
4. Children work best when their unique qualities are recognized and supported. (So do adults.)
   
   
5. Our children are the future. And we, as parents, are responsible for their well-being. We are the guardians of the children who will keep the ship afloat or sink it.

I feel pretty good about handing the reigns of this world over to my son, William. He's ready. He's bright, highly educated, moral, and motivated. He was also home schooled for the last 6 years of his school life. He would not exist in his currently bright condition had we been forced by some suppressive law to school "traditionally".

This time, California lucked out. We cannot count on there always being a "Governator" and a Jerry Brown to protect our rights. A movement to curtail home school rights could start anywhere, in any municipality in the world. There will always be people who "know best" what your children need.

Somehow, parents everywhere are going to have to find the need and the courage to be louder and more proactive. It's simply too easy to turn over the responsibility for our children to the state, and to assume that the state knows best. They most certainly do not, as the statistics more than prove. Even using their own ridiculous tests as a barometer, home school children fare far better than other educational groups.

My part of this struggle has been to create a home school curriculum that I believe will provide a true and complete education in the areas our government does not feel even need to be tested for. I've worked at authoring Connect The Thoughts, and 1 ^st Step, for around 9 years now, and I'm not finished. Many people are using these courses and winning with them.

But this is going to be a long-fought battle. If you're not sure it's worth the effort to fight it, take a hard look at your children, and the world they will be stepping into shortly.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

Happy 4th of July - Open Letter

    

In America, today is Independence Day. This is the day we celebrate our national freedom. For those of you who have looked over the Connect The Thoughts course on Independence Day, you know there are some 100 countries around the world that each celebrate Independence Days of their own, at different times of the year. While I do believe that a nation's independence is worthy of celebration, I think we all could occasionally use a reminder about the intended nature of the relationship between government and the people it represents.

The best nations are those where individuals are important. Historically, per Will Durant (America's greatest historian), it is almost always the individual who comes up with the next important idea, or discovery in science, or work of art. Our history as Human beings (at its best) is one of great individuals creating, and the "crowd" following in their footsteps and supporting the new. You're doubtless reading this on your computer? Thank Thomas Alva Edison (or Tesla, according to some tellings), an American inventor who devised the light bulb and who figured out how to use electricity in a productive way. Thank the person or team of bright specialists who devised the circuitry, the mechanisms that make this possible. Yes, the Internet is supported by corporations, and computers are assembled by them. However, these things were not invented by corporations but rather by individuals.

A lot of modern life is collaboration, that is certainly true. But this is largely the case because the existence of civilization allows us each to specialize. You don't use up hours per day to grow or collect your own food - others specialize in this so you don't need to. You don't sew your own clothes, either, most likely. Or build your own house. People specialize. And the people who build your house rarely grow their own food. The farmer no longer makes his own clothes as a rule. Specialization is the gift (and curse I suppose) of civilization.

The freedom to specialize gave us nearly every genius you can think of throughout history. A man who has to farm has no time to invent the light bulb, sound recording and movie, as Edison did. Bach wrote mountains of wondrous music, and Shakespeare authored over 20 theatrical masterpieces (out of his over 30 plays) because they were allowed by their civilizations three things: 1) The time, resources and energy to specialize; 2) access to other specialists who could help bring their creations to fruition, such as actors, musicians, people to build theaters or musical instruments, and; 3) the freedom to create. These qualities are absolutely necessary to the blossoming of genius in a nation, any nation. Again they are: 1) The wherewithal to specialize; 2) Access to other specialists, and 3) Freedom to create. This is not just a formula for genius, but also a formula for accomplishment of almost any sort.

What does this mean to you as a homeschooler? Everything. These three points are a virtual formula for the development of potential. This is one of the most important lessons of history.

Who does not wish for their children that they achieve their greatest potential? That they each provide mankind some sort of unique contribution? Wasn't one of the most important reasons you started homeschooling your intention to provide your student the best possible chance to be everything they could be? This is the "game" that a free society should always play, isn't it?

Matter of fact, the right to homeschool can easily be seen as an index of the degree of freedom a country allows. It can also be seen as an index of sanity for that nation. If a country wishes to survive in an ever-more-complex world, it certainly will need its geniuses! Countries which restrict homeschooling have made a decision - that their government knows better than the family or child what that child needs and what the child is capable of. But the government is just an edifice, a mass of people. It will never even know your child's name, much less what he or she may be capable of.

Homeschoolers, unrestricted by the rules and agendas of schools and school systems, are free to discover themselves and to specialize in accord with their own interests and desires. The home and family organize or provide the needed resources. These include access to the works of needed specialists. (I hope to be one of the specialists your children use to develop their own potential!) The child (or adult) studies at will, free to do so, and doing so will eventually expose the student to those subjects of profound interest to them. These will be different for different people. Freedom allows the student to decide for him or herself what to invest themselves into, how to specialize. If history is at all correct, homeschool can and should be a breeding ground for maximum accomplishment.

If you are an American (as am I), today is an important day, far more important than barbecues and fireworks might indicate. Today is a day to reaffirm your personal and individual rights and freedoms, spelled out in the Constitution by the great men who had the ideas this country is based upon, and whose lead we are supposedly following. If you haven't read the Constitution lately, you should. Many of the rights promised you there are under siege, or have been already abridged. Per the formula, freedom is the force which makes accomplishment possible. States may provide the environment where the individual can achieve. Such states are worth supporting and celebrating. But even when living is such a nation, it is critical to ever recall that governments and states exist to serve individuals, it is not the other way around. A nation, every nation absolutely relies on the individual to provide that country its purpose, life and a future.

For me personally, I recognize that it is freedom which has allowed the curriculum I've authored to come into existence. The formula for accomplishment given above applies. I've specialized (as an educator), had access to uncounted other specialists and their works (some thousands of years old), and had the freedom to create and offer my creations to you. Such freedom is beyond price! It is not created by a government, but it could (and should) be defended by one.

The right to homeschool is not a privilege granted by a government. Thr right to homeschool is a manifestation of the basic human right to educate one's self or one's children, of the basic human freedom to explore and discover, and of the essential human freedom to determine one's own path in life.

Happy Independence Day!

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

Don'ts In Teaching

    

Homeschooling is a profound challenge for a parent. Sure, it's a challenge for the student, too. But the parent has to suddenly become an expert teacher. And since it's your children that you're teaching, you want to be a great teacher!

Here are some don'ts to consider as you start (continue) your teaching adventure:

-Don't restrict the student to the "three R's". Listen, and when the student expresses an interest in a subject (other than video games), do what you can to expose them to subjects they're reaching for. You may go through several of these and find your student rejecting them before hitting on one or two they love. Expect to waste some money and time. But those interests which they embrace will help shape the rest of the student's life, provide them joy and possible security. This is a real advantage homeschool families have that schools generally cannot provide; flexibility in subject matter which can be tailored to the student's interests. Interested students work harder at their studies than uninterested students.

-Don't micromanage any more than is necessary. The more responsibility the student takes, the more they'll learn. We expect a lot from our children, but we rarely grant them authority equal to the level of responsibility. You probably don't like it much when you're told to do a thing but not given the freedom to do it your way. Your student doesn't like it, either. A gradual, careful surrendering to a student of authority over their education empowers and prepares them for life. We call people who are entirely responsible for themselves "adults". (At least, that's the idea.) That should be where your student is headed.

-Don't edit or "critique" your student's creative efforts. Creativity is a deeply personal thing. A creative work is nothing less than a part of the person who created it, shared with the world. Accordingly, few qualities are as fragile as creativity. A disapproving look at the wrong time can slow creativity down. Correcting spelling in a creative writing exercise, when creative expression and not spelling was the point, can blunt the student's interest. And "helping" with ideas, plots, melodies, whatever, only tells the student that their own ideas aren't enough, or good enough. Left alone with plenty of opportunity to experiment, almost anyone could become an artist of some sort. In the arts, study and experience (exposure and practice) generate expertise far more than critique ever did. Willing artists create far more than those who are brow-beaten and who have been "trained" to doubt their own insights and skills.

The Dos? Do listen, answer questions, provide resources and opportunities, and admire your students and their creations.

These don'ts and dos can go a long way toward making you an excellent teacher, to your student's lifelong advantage.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

Curriculum

    

Curriculum has existed for thousands of years, starting in the west with Plato and Aristotle. History, science, creative writing, mathematics, ethics, philosophy, speech and drama, rhetoric, logic, fine art, music, physical education...all were taught by the ancient Greeks, along with pragmatic skills such as farming, building construction and engineering, and soldiering, depending on where one studied and what one intended to do. The idea of "curriculum" is ancient, in the public domain, and requires no approval for the authoring of new curriculum from any existing entity.

Plato was one of the first in the West to state or document the purpose for each area (or course) of study , particularly in the various areas of mathematics, in The Republic . (Plato was born in 427 B.C.) Plato defines the sort of education the "Guardians" of the city should have, in the chapter entitled Education of the Philosopher . "Consider how men of this kind are to be produced. What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from a kind of twilight to the true day, that climb up into reality...So we must try to find out what sort of studies have this effect." He proceeds to do so from his perspective, focusing largely on music, poetry, mathematics, physical education, military training and practical skills.

Plato breaks down and specifies the need for study in each area of mathematics in his chapter, The Five Mathematical Studies. He makes specific and separate arguments as to why a leader must study arithmetic, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and what he calls "harmonics", which has to do with solid bodies and motion (Physics, in other words). The purpose for each study and the anticipated and desired result for both the individual being educated, and for the city-state the individual will participate in, are carefully debated and defined.

Aristotle in The Politics , in his chapter The Education of the Ideal King , states the purpose of education as he saw it; "...The education and morals that make a man sound, and those that make him fit to play the part of a statesman or of a king, are more or less identical." In the same book, in the chapter entitled Education as a Public Concern , Aristotle writes "There must (also) be preparatory training for all skills and capacities, and a process of preliminary habituation to the work of each profession." He states in his writings that education should move the student toward action which is "right" or "good", rather than merely "correct". He believes that physical training, music, debate, science and philosophy are required studies in forming a whole being, the goal of education overall to Aristotle.

As a matter of course, virtually every educator and philosopher who has ever lived has at one time or another defined, in writing, the purpose of education, and of individual areas in study. The examples above, around 2,400 years old, are offered to demonstrate the age of this practice, and the fact that no one today can claim proprietary rights over this practice.

Will Durant in his writings, mandated the purpose of a study of history, when he stated in his book, The Reformation ; "The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding" .

It is precisely Durant's mandate I've utilized in the authoring of my history courses, which are the core of my curriculum, with Creative Writing (an area I've worked in professionally since I was 16 years old) and science.

The idea of teaching subjects in ordered and structured ways, to a given result , is at least as old as the Platonic Greeks, again around 2.400 years ago, in the West. One of the first western schools we know of, the Academy, dates back to Plato himself, and was dedicated to the systematic teaching of various subjects. Such studies, and the statement of a goal in conjunction with each area of study, have been with Western civilization for thousands of years, and this is most easily and immediately demonstrated in the area of mathematics and through the writings of Plato in The Republic . That subjects have been taught this way since the first European Universities came into existence toward the end of the Medieval period is not debatable. Virtually all education has been done this way for many hundreds of years in the West. Studies have also existed in this form for at least that long in the East, as can be seen in the writings of Plato's contemporary, Confucius (more later).

As to the defining of terms used in a study , Socrates always starts and builds every study around this technique, in Plato's Republic . The defining of terms as the basis of understanding and, hence, education has been with the west for at least 2,400 years. Entire chapters, indeed nearly the entire book The Republic is built around a discussion of the meaning and application of single words and concepts, such as "justice", "liberty", or "morality". Indeed, the defining of terms is demonstrated to be the foundation of an understanding of any and all philosophies, and of life. Accordingly, this can be seen to be an understood and essential aspect in education in the West for over 2,400 years.

Nearly every great thinker in history, from Plato to Aristotle to Confucius to Buddha to Ben Franklin to Voltaire, stated that a person must understand words to understand an area, or to even discuss it. This became such an in-built part of education that dictionaries became a necessity a long time ago, the first English language dictionary being printed in 1604, A Table Alphabeticall , by Shakespearian contemporary Robert Cowdrey. No one has proprietary rights over the defining of terms as part of a course of study. And the very thoroughness of dictionaries, covering roots, etc, for hundreds of years, indicates a universal understanding of what is expected when one defines a word.

In my courses, difficult and important words are provided simple and applicable definitions before materials are studied . This application of the defining of words prior to study comes from Mathematics, which is (and has nearly always been) taught in the following manner: A term, concept or method is defined first; examples given of the use of the term, concept or method; problems are given to the student using the method just taught; student's results are evaluated. You would be hard-pressed to find many math courses of study written in the last several hundred years (or longer) that works in another manner. I've built all my courses of study structurally along this format, one inherent to math, science and philosophy for hundreds of years. This format is the property of the species. Islamic mathematicians used it during the European Dark Ages, as various documents demonstrate. It's old.

Additionally, mathematics (as well as language studies) is and has long been a model subject for the concept of teaching in "gradients" , a concept again dating back thousands of years, as described ably by Plato in The Republic in the section entitled Education of the Philosopher , and one which nearly every educator has awareness of. Plato makes it clear that mathematical courses of study must be delivered in order, as they build on each other. Arithmetic is (and must be) followed by Geometry, and that by Physics. The idea that a teacher builds an education through increasingly complex steps, and that the next part of one's education should be built on the materials learned and understood in the previous part, can be clearly seen in documents as old The Republic . It's very old.

Language, even Latin, is and has almost always been taught by giving a student a list of rules, words and definitions, then building these into cognitive sentences, and then adding "gradiently" more words and definitions and assignments until the student achieves fluency, and this, an easily documented manner, has been so since at least the medieval period in, in Universities throughout the Western world. Languages, accordingly and like math and philosophy, have been taught using "gradients" . This has been so for thousands of years.

Confucius, Plato's contemporary, as does any good educator, clearly understands "gradients". He states in his section in On Education , entitled The Process of Learning , that "a good questioner proceeds like a man chopping wood -- he begins at the easier end, attacking the knots last." In further describing a college education, he says that one of the priorities is to "teach the different subjects in proper sequence." He claims that "to fail to teach the different subjects in their proper order would bring about chaos in their studies, without good results" . He is clearly aware of "gradients". And so, accordingly, are his hundreds of millions of adherents, for the past 25 centuries.

The idea of gradients in education is very old, probably as old as education itself. I came to grips with gradients in education from my own education, my exposure to history, religion and philosophy, and mostly from my work as an artist (which has been life long from the age of five), and my own teaching career which started at age 15, in the areas of acting, directing and writing. But I had already been exposed, through my work as an artist.

Every artist inherently understands and utilizes gradients both in their own training, and in the actual creation of a work of art. Bach understood that he had to establish a first theme, state it so that it was understood in his composition, and then add a second and third theme...this is the essence of fugue. Fugues are the musical demonstration of "gradients", as is nearly any constructed piece of music. Furthermore, Bach understood that the teaching of skills in music would have to be in a gradient manner, as can be seen in his instructional series of exercises, The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Shakespeare understands that to build a complex play, you introduce thoroughly one element at a time, establish it, and then add another, and another, until you have a rich tapestry which the audience is able to thoroughly comprehend only because you've worked in gradients. Every decent writer understands this concept. It's inherent to nearly all art. Dancers choreograph using the same principal. Gradients and artists are ancient allies. I am a playwright, composer, writer, choreographer, and director, and have been for a long time. I have always understood the principle of "gradients". No one taught it to me; no one "owns" gradients as a concept, or as an element of education.

There are other elements employed in my curriculum, of course. I number each step in every area of study , just as every math book numbers every assignment. I do this so the student can easily see where he is in his studies, and so a teacher may work with the additional materials provided with each course, including tests. Again, nearly every math program ever known to man does this. It is an old technique used to organize studies.

I break down each course of study into daily "lesson plans" , as many math study programs have for a long time, certainly going back to the 1800s (and as every moderately successful classroom teacher has done, consciously or otherwise, since education began).

My courses also have students look up on a map and globe any location they will be studying . The study of geography, especially in conjunction with history, is also an old technique. Caesar claims to have studied Geography, and Aristotle is claimed to have taught it to Alexander, along with ethics and other studies.

The assignment of exercises and/or tests for a student to do as he acquires a new skill or new information, as both a method of demonstrating and developing understanding of materials studied , is easily as old as the teaching of mathematics and science, thousands of years. Every student who ever did a column of math problems, dating back to Archimedes, knows this.

Additionally, such exercises are and have ever been a staple in the training of a student in any of the arts (as in painting, dance, music or acting), and as such, are easily demonstrated (through "modern" methods of acting instruction, such as Delsarte or Stanislavski, through the normal training methodology in ballet for over 150 years, through every system for the training of the voice since Mozart or music since Bach) to be very old in the West.

Aristotle, in Nichoachean Ethics, Book II , distinguishes two methods of education. One is through a process of reasoning, and the other, experience. "Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it." Clearly, Aristotle understood the need for pragmatic, experiential exercises in study.

This sort of educational tool goes back as a standard practice in education in the West to Athens and Sparta, and even earlier in the East. The Spartans made a life of such exercises, intended to demonstrate and increase expertise over their studies of the art of war. The use of "military exercises" noted and ancient.

Further as to the student's demonstration of skills based on what one has learned, this is patently the purpose of any and all Internships, an institution at least as old as guilds (the medieval period) in Europe, and much older in the East. A guild was designed to allow a person to increase in rank within his chosen profession based on a demonstration of an organized series of particular, required skills learned at the side of a "craftsman", and then perfected by the initiate. This is common knowledge.

But beyond the above-mentioned examples, there's scarcely a successful line of study engaged in at any time in history that does not expect a student to demonstrate expertise in an area of study, from the writing of a language by ancient scribes, to the skills required of the medieval jouster, to Bach's instruction of his own children in the art of composition (to which end he composed many exercises , and note, these are called "exercises" in music, the term I've chosen to use in my courses, as I am and have ever been a musician), to today's craftsman.

Tests on materials studied have always been a part of education. There is likely no time in recorded history when they were not. Per Confucius (in The Wisdom of Confucius, On Education ), education was "ancient" in his day, 2,500 years ago, and a system of local schools through Universities, had already long-existed in his day. Additionally, he speaks of "examinations", tests taken at the end of courses of study. This technique of study followed by testing to demonstrate an understanding of one's studies is even older in the East than in the West.

Further, in the same document, Confucius describes a system where "No inspector is sent to the college, that the students may be left alone to develop themselves" , after compiling a list of what should be studied, year after year. This more than implies personalized and individual study as a concept used by the Chinese for thousands of years, something many western educators have grabbed onto as useful over the years.

Children have, needless to say, been creating drawings since history began and then some, as a part of their lessons. I ask students to draw many things they're studying. This is a very old educational technique, perhaps as old as cave paintings, and certainly as old as the Medieval period. Many Islamic medical texts survive this period, filled with student and expert drawings of the human body and its functions. Hand-drawn (even in clay) charts of the starts in the heavens served the ancient Egyptians and Greeks as study guides.

We ask children to write many essays . Essays go back at least to Montaigne (the 1600s), and it can be argued that various Roman writers were essayists. Even St. Paul could be seen to be an essayist in his epistles. This is an old technique used to demonstrate a point of view, and expertise, in a subject. Certainly the essay is an ancient (and due to its misuse, a dreaded) aspect of education used heavily in the United State during most of the last several centuries.

All my history and science courses, and some other courses, use standard textbooks , as their textual base. My study guides, particularly in the areas of history, science, poetry and sports, are often built around these specific books, and other related materials such as films. In this manner, these courses are designed as college courses have been for centuries. If a text does not exist then I construct one, after a review of the data available in that area of study.

Students use the "study guide" provided them to walk through their texts and other study materials, step by step. Every study guide now consists entirely of a series of daily "lesson plans" , and this system goes back a long way. Every teacher (if they're going to teach for more than a few days) learns to create lesson plans covering yearly, semester, and daily teaching to be done, and this has nearly always been so. This is and has been standard operating procedure for teachers since The Academy, in the West. One constructs a course of study, and breaks it down into daily "bites". A teacher then provides his student his daily lesson.

Every one of my "study guides" consists solely of a series of daily lesson plans, each built in approximately the same manner. Each lesson plan starts with locations to be found on maps and a globe (if applicable), words which will be included in materials to be studied are defined, then materials are studied, and then exercises are done to master and fully understand the materials studied.

In the case of CTT, lesson plans are written down (much as a college course instructor would create a syllabus, a detailed list of what must be done to complete a course of study), and the student proceeds through, step by step. Colleges have worked this way a very long time. Math courses always work this way, and almost always have. This is an old technique, and no one "owns" it.

I first started teaching in my teens (acting and writing), and the first thing I realized at that time was the need for a written course of study and a series of lesson plans, built gradiently. It was patently obvious what had to happen to teach successfully. All decent teachers come to this conclusion, and rapidly. (Please note, I was teaching at the University level, at USC, CSUN, and other schools, by the time I was 24, and without having gone to college for so much as one day. I learned to operate this way as a survival point, and no one told me how. I just ended up doing what all decent teachers do .)

The above describes the elements and organization of which my courses are made. Every element, and the organizing of these elements, is quite old. I am attempting to create courses which stand alone. As illustrated above, these courses use ancient, proven techniques and concepts which, again, all of our educations were determined by in better times.

A few more points, just to assure a thorough disclosure of the facts. Other areas of study have been developed in various courses, as indicated above. I don't believe I need describe in detail courses on music, animation, sports, or acting.

The Creative Writing Program consists of many courses. One of the ideas communicated to students in the early courses is that a work of art communicates a "message" to its audience. Plato clearly understood this concept as can be readily seen in The Republic , Education, The First Stage; Secondary or Literary Education . He speaks of the impressionability of students, and the importance of the ideas communicated to them through their readings of poetry (their "media"). Aristotle defines in The Poetics the entire effect that is to be created be each type of poetry, be it a tragic or comic piece. He makes it clear each piece is to have an effect on the audience specific to its breed, and that each type of poem is appropriate to communicate a certain type of "message".

"Messages" in art are as old as art, and every artist understands that his work communicates such. Louis B. Mayer (Metro Goldwyn Mayer), the famous movie producer, said in the 1930s when he felt his writers were "turning serious" on him; "If you want to send a message , call Western Union". This word has been in the language for a while, used in the way Mayer used it, to describe the single idea a work of art intends to communicate. I developed mine in my teens, when I first started teaching. The remainder of these courses involve writing techniques such as "outlines"; "character development"; and "structure" that all writers have used since writing began. They're all defined by Aristotle in The Poetics , and Confucius in The Analects , and by uncountable others. They are, in fact, a part of the operating basis of artists, and have been for thousands of years.

We have a course on right behavior, based on the idea that "manners" are good when they contribute to an understanding and respect for others . This concept goes back minimally to Plato and Confucius. In Aristotle's On Education , he discusses at length the need to have all education work toward allowing the student to do that which is "good" or "right", and not just what is "socially acceptable".

Confucius claimed in his First Discourse that when he entered a country, he could tell about the type of education people received there by the nature of the people, how they treated others. He believed, as he stated repeatedly in this discourse, that the precise subjects taught to a person, and methods used to teach, directly contribute to the nature of the adult the person becomes. The entire discourse covers this. In his essay Ethics and Politics, section VII, On The Relationship Between Family and National Life, Confucius claims "Those who would order their national life must set about ordering their home life". He proceeds to explain how right behavior in relationships starts at home and that one should correct one's own behavior, then one's family, and that such "right action" spreads outwards to the neighborhood, and the state. He describes the damage one greedy or wrong-acting man may have on a family or a nation.

Confucius describes in the Li Ji the idea that a parent must cause their children to be productive and, (to use the phrase common in our group for the sake of shorthand), "in exchange". He states "In loving their children...parents must exact some effort from them". In the Xiao Jing , he further describes what right family behavior would be, claiming a child's debts to their parents include revering them, making them happy, caring for them when they're ill, etc. He emphasizes the need for courtesy in family (and then other) relationships.

These concepts, forwarded by Confucius, Aristotle and others, are the foundation for our course on Manners.

We have a course on how to take a vacation . We have a spelling course , where students isolate in their own weekly writings words they're misspelling and learn to spell the words on the list created in a week of their work. We have a reading program , where the student essentially selects what he wants to read, without any enforcement or "required books". (I have never seen a reading program done this way, but it is how I learned to read and enjoy reading as a child, and was taught to me by my grandparents.) We have an Artist's Basics course, based on my own observations (noted and notated for over 30 years) of the qualities successful artists' master. These are based solely on my own experience and observations.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

And as California Home School is Saved...There Goes New York

    

Excuse me, Sir, you said what? In New York City, standardized testing is being initiated for kindergarten students next month?

You want to test my little Johnny? No! That's very funny! I...huh? I heard you right? It's not a joke? In NYC, there will be mandatory testing to determine if my five year old is sufficiently...what? Schooled? But he hasn't started school yet! Educated? Literate? But he's not educated, yet, Sir, he's about to start that slow, hard climb. Sane? Oh, is that it? Because, and let me see if I understand you, Sir, we should all expect our five year olds to be calm, rational examples of human sanity? What, like the adult politicians running our town? Huh? Like the morons who came up with this idea? What? Just make sure he shows up on time for your test? And what happens if I refuse...?

Are you weary of such machinations? Are you terrified and furious about maneuvers like these, intended to place institutional controls over the lives of our children? I am. But I'm sorry to say, this is no joke. Next month, children in NYC of kindergarten age will go through mandatory, standardized testing.

As those of you using Connect The Thoughts and 1st Step know, I'm profoundly opposed to "testing" that does anything other than help the student evaluate and master the materials he or she is studying. State testing does nothing but place a mark on your child so he or she can be "processed correctly", as say "bright", "remedial", or "troubled". The rationale behind such standardized tests, in the end, seem to be so we can eventually manufacture good, standardized human beings.

The claim actually made is that these tests allow states and school districts to compare their educational results with prior years, and other educational institutions. That's nice. But there have been standardized tests for decades. Yet, nearly all of our educational industry's statistics continue to worsen, year after year. These expensive "evaluations" are paid for by tax dollars, and benefit who? If these tests were in any way beneficial to students, then why is it that scores are still dropping? Unless of course the tests are manipulated and designed to show scores dropping, so that more funding can be demanded to stem the tide of encroaching "idiocy" in our country? And who would benefit from such funding?

If these tests have been useful, then why are more children and families fleeing schools than ever before in the history of organized education in the United States.

Why test five year olds? I know why, and I believe that most of you reading this know, too. Institutionalized testing exists to categorize children and make them more easily "handled." Results can be used to stigmatize, manipulate, degrade and minimize not just the student, but his or her traumatized family. Really, who amongst us could bear to hear that our little Johnny or Susie, at the tender age of five, has a "problem"? Could there be a more disturbing report?! Could there be any other news handed down to a family by "an authority", that would more quickly make that family do whatever they're told, whatever will help little Johnny or Susie?

Is there anywhere a bigger pile of hooey?

Folks, when my son was in his early teens, and he's not going to like that I'm mentioning this, he was quite short and quite round, and I feared for his future. I had nightmares. I dreaded what he would become, that he would be depressed, sad and lonely. I fought daily to provide him a social life. I envisioned a grim future for the lad spent before a computer screen somewhere, smoking and drinking some sort of cheap beer and silently raging at the fates.

Then a few years went by, he became brilliant, grew six inches and started getting roles as a professional actor. Now he's a young Robert Redford, only funny. And man, I had certainly wasted a lot of worrying!

You simply cannot evaluate young children! As every parent will tell you, they change. They change every day. Some children are hard to recognize from week to week, much less year to year. Children change, and almost always grow into themselves.

I've been a teacher for over 30 years and have worked with many hundreds of children. Every one of them went through academic and emotional and physical hurdles...and then they grew up. Slowly, sometimes painfully, but inevitably, they grew up. I'd say at least 95% of them came out pretty well. The other 5% are still working at it. But under no circumstances could I or anyone else have told you how any one of those children would come out at age eighteen, by looking at him or her at age five!

What you have at age five is a human being "in embryo". The raw materials may all be there, but they have not been arranged by the hand of man, science or God. That process is reserved for the workings of time. And no institutionalized test can see into the future. We're just not wise enough to create such a test.

So let's ask a few questions I'm sure we will not get answers to. Who will be constructing said tests for kindergartners? What is the agenda behind the selection of questions? What is the basis of evaluation?

Here's a better question: How quickly can we vote out of office the monsters that support and engender this sort of covert control over the lives of our children?

The brainchild apparently of Mayor Bloomberg, thousands of kindergarten children are about to be evaluated. It will be determined if these worrisome denizens of the sandbox need...what? Remedial help before they start their schooling? Psychiatric aid to help them play in the sandbox better with their fellows? Or is it the drug companies who need help, in the form of yet another cash cow...er, another excuse to make mandatory their poisons to children just starting to stick their heads out the front door of home for the first time in their lives? What, Johnny is "anxious"? He needs Ritalin.

Below is a link to a video carried by a television station in New York. Please take a look at it. It's a news story, and even the anchor woman is clearly disgusted. If this isn't an argument for taking education out of the hands of institutions, then I have no idea what would persuade.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/education&id=6354227

My son recently took a test in the state of California that very few adults living here would pass. It was to determine if he'd acquired a sufficient education to represent the proud educational tradition of the state of California. You know, the state that brought you...uh...no, not Einstein. Give me a moment. Oh, yes...the state that brought you OVER A 50% DROP OUT RATE. Oh, sorry, that's the mark across the United States, now, not just California. Oops.

Until our schools locate a constructive purpose and a degree of sanity, home school may be the last bastion of education. And if many of those in government have their way, even home school children will be subjected to evaluations like those five year olds in New York City will endure next month. These are our children. We know and love them, and it's our righteous duty and privilege to protect them from such devious and destructive "tests". Life is test enough.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

An Open Letter to Homeschoolers about Thanksgiving

    

In the United States, we are approaching Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, we are asked to look at our lives and offer thanks for those blessings we find there. Or, to quote the great American songwriter, Irving Berlin, "Count Your Blessings". (A great song that is often used as a part of Christmas celebrations, but which is better suited for Thanksgiving! FYI: Among many hundreds of songs, Berlin also wrote "White Christmas", and "God Bless America".)

One important blessing that you and I share — at least for now — is the right to home school in many parts of the world. (I assume you home school or are considering home schooling, or you wouldn’t be reading this.) We should be able to count on this right and blessing.

The right of a parent to determine for their own children what their education will and will not consist of should be held generally as sacred. But home school as a process and as an institution is under attack in many corners of the world, often attacked by "educators" whose salaries are determined by head count, the number of students showing up to class each day. This is true of all public and private schools.

With the exception of the rare, abusive parent, no one knows or cares more about a child than the child's parents. Parents live with and hear their children as they start to develop ambitions and dreams. In fact, there aren't many things that happen as a part of parenting that are more exciting and rewarding then when our children start to demonstrate interest and aptitude in some area of study or life.

It is a parent's first assignment to keep their young safe. The second critical priority is to provide opportunities for their children, based on observed interests and skills.

Interest is the key to a child's successful education. If you've tried to teach a child math who hates math, or writing who hates writing, you know that there is little that can be done, educationally, with an unmotivated child. A lot of force and threats can be exerted if you feel so inclined, but really, you're not going to get far. This is not to say that children should be let off the hook and allowed not to receive an education in the basics — reading and literacy, math, language, some history and science. It would be hard to get along in civilization today without the ability to read and write, and without basic math and science under one's belt. But that said, not every child is going to get far with math, or writing, or science. Not every child cares to. The same can be said for any subject, regardless of whether that subject is "required".

Herein is found one of the great strengths of homeschooling. A home school curricula can largely be shaped to support a child's interests. My own children were not fond of math. (I unfortunately share their distaste for it, though I recognize the value of well-developed skills in math.) They were far more interested in the arts. Both of them sing, and act, and write. (Their mother was an opera singer. Their father is a writer, and acting teacher. Go figure...) As I started home schooling them in 2002, I had math as a staple, and attempted to enforce it as had been done in the private schools they attended. This made all their educational work painful to them, as they were not being consulted or respected as to their own interests. This failed as an approach. They never really mastered much math, even when assisted by people who love and understand the subject. Interest was the key — they had none. Their interests rested in the arts, and for my son, in history and science as well. In those areas in which they had an interest, they did well. When they had little or no interest, they did poorly. I speak from experience, and I've observed the same phenomenon in hundreds of students over the years.

Unfortunately, schools almost always have to "cookie cut" their educational efforts. There are too many students per classroom, even in most private schools and certainly in nearly all public schools, to tailor the educational experience to the needs and interests of the individual child. The "cookie-cutter" approach to education cannot assist a child in developing their own personal interests and skills unless they happen to fall within the rather narrow bounds of what is offered to all the students. It cannot succeed at this because it does not have the individual child as its target.

The "group" approach to education suffers from other pitfalls. Even if a student is interested in, say, math, he or she is forced to work at a rate that is not optimum for them. Why? Because there will be other students in the room who are simply not interested in that subject, and who will accordingly drag their way through. A classroom operates on the "lowest common denominator" approach — it moves as fast as the slowest students. As the United States government has foolishly accepted — "no child left behind". This approach makes all children in a classroom the victims of the system. "Slow" children are not consulted for interest, hate what they are studying, are not allowed to study other materials or use other methods that might succeed for them. "Faster" students are "punished", forced to move far more slowly than their skills and interests might allow. Why? So no child is left behind, of course. The result — every child is left behind.

One purpose of education should be the preparing of a child for life or a career. A career can be a valid, if limited educational goal. Math, science, and other general education studies are often parts of this goal. But more importantly, education should assist in empowering the child to pursue and catch his or her dreams. The truth is that almost every child will grow up and work. Will they work at jobs they hate, but have been trained to hold? Or will they create their own jobs, and even whole industries, through their own insights and passions? Will work be a daily grind and a curse, a necessity limited in its horizons by cookie-cutter education that rarely if ever took the child's interests into account? Or will they love their work and see it as a blessing? Are we educating toward a bottom line — survival? Or are we educating toward an improved world, and productive and creative lives filled with challenge and joy? Is a job really the end goal of an education — or is a fulfilled and valuable life lived?

For Thanksgiving, I think it's a great idea, as Mr. Berlin suggests in his great song, that we look at our children and add them to the list of blessings. I believe that home school is itself a blessing. It allows the parent to participate and contribute in unique ways toward the realization of their children's dreams, dreams that might never have seen the light of day with our children buried in the system of education civilization generally offers. Let's add home school to our list of blessings. I also believe that our children will count their home schooling as a blessing as they grow older and understand how it — and their parents — helped them build good and happy lives.

     Steven Horwich
     November 20, 2009
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

  

An Open Letter to Homeschool Parents

    

(Written September 1, 2008)

Hi Friends

A new school year! This has always been, in many ways, my favorite time of year, from back when I was an elementary school student, through all my years of teaching.

This year I find myself in an odd position. For the first time in 20 years, I do not have a child "in school". My daughter is 20 and long done, and my son completed his school officially a few months ago, at age 16. He's continuing through Upper School History 10-11, Science VIII and Creative Writing VI, which is our version of a "Master's Program", but he's technically done, and is working as a professional actor.

For the past 15 years, I've either taught at my children's schools, or home schooled groups of children so my children would have people to study with, or home schooled alone (mostly the last two years). This will be the first year in a very long time when I am not teaching children. When this thought struck me with the first cool breeze of encroaching September, I felt quite a loss, a sense of personal sadness. No more children to teach.

But that's not exactly true, is it? Thanks to all of you.

I started authoring Connect The Thoughts for my own children. When I realized that the ideas behind Connect The Thoughts were effective and that it helped others, I expanded my vision. I've been expanding the vision for six years. At my1ststep.com, you'll find the full 1st semester of curriculum I've authored covering children ages 4-8. Now, why on Earth would I write curricula for such young children NOW, when my own two have long since passed up the need?

There are several answers.

First: I feel like I have a whole lot of children in a way, out there that I've agreed to take responsibility for. Oh, I know you're all wonderful parents. I read your posts on our Yahoo! group and have spoken and written to many of you. I also know that you're all working your hearts out, and that times are pretty tough right now for many people. Home schooling can be wonderful, but it's also time consuming and rigorous. It's a handful for a parent, and a ton of responsibility for a child. I admire anyone who tackles home school. I want to help. Being a writer and an educator, authoring curricula is my way of helping.

I've written here at this group once about my wife, Elizabeth, who passed away in 2001. She was opposed to home schooling. She felt that our children needed a social life. In 2002, I started home schooling my children, profoundly mindful of her concerns. I made sure my children had both a social life and an effective home school situation, on a nearly daily basis. From the start, it was a lot of work. It remained a lot of work. But I could not be happier with my children and who they became. I believe the work has been worthwhile for us. I believe the work of home schooling will be worthwhile for many of you, too. I'm glad I did it. I think Elizabeth would be proud of the results.

I had very high expectations for my children. I'm sure it has often been a trial for them. But it's a tough world. I hold the highest of hopes and ambitions for your children and for you. We could really use a moral, brilliant, creative generation about now. I see that as my generation's job, now, to help create the generation that will rescue this planet.

Two: I have MANY friends with young children. They need an educational answer. I do not believe that the vast majority of what is available in way of curricula works. I know Connect The Thoughts works, after all this time. The 1st Step courses have received very good responses so far. I worked hard to see to it that 1st Step would solve the problems of educating younger children. I want the problems solved for my friends, and for all the reasons enumerated herein.

Three: Someday, my children will have children. They will be brilliant children. I've helped see to that.

Four: Until our schools find a way to serve the purpose I do believe they wish to serve but haven't a clue how, a better answer must be made available. I believe that answer is home school. I believe home school may be the one great hope we have of truly educating our young, today. I'm certain it's the last bastion of educational free thought for young students, and the only educational "institution" which will still allow open discussion of those critical subjects schools are no longer allowed to approach or even discuss, such as religion.

But home school is only as effective as the curricula employed, and I think this has always been its great weakness. Families must have the right and freedom to educate their own. But they must also then assume full responsibility for the education imparted. This means locating or creating curricula that works. That's a lot to ask of overburdened parents with lives and jobs of their own.

Five: The world's a mess. It's the mess our children will inherit. I want them as prepared as possible. I want them to do far more than survive the mess we will leave them...I want them able to fix it.

I kind of thought I might be done authoring curricula about six months ago, but it's very clear now there's much more to be done.

As we start a new home school year, I want home schooling parents to know how much I admire what you're doing! I'll continue to do everything I can to assist you.

I've placed many articles on the 1st Step ( my1ststep.com ) and Connect The Thoughts site ( connectthethoughts.net ) recently, to try and fill in some of the gaps new home school families encounter. I will continue to improve and author courses for both Connect The Thoughts and 1st Step, until I feel that every possible avenue I'm capable of authoring in way of curricula has been explored and made available to you. I have many friends who have jumped in and are helping with this, and should have some very wonderful surprises for you over the next six months.

For now, let me wish you all the very best of results with your children this year! May your families be strong, your intent be respected, and may your vision of the future that you are helping prepare your children to own be clear and glorious.

And thanks for giving me something worth the doing!

With affection,

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

An Open Letter to Home School Moms for Mother's Day

    

Hi homeschool families!

I wanted to share a few thoughts for Mother's Day. If you are homeschooling then the overwhelming odds are that your mother is in charge of your education. I have read thousands of letters and posts over the last 5 years from homeschool families and they are almost always from moms. (I think I've had two from dads.) This is written to those moms and to mothers who take incredible amounts of responsibility for their children.

THANK YOU!!!

The future is in your hands, mom. You've grabbed hold of the future and given it a shake for all that it's worth. And you are doing this not only as a mom but also as an educator!

Yes, it's true that you help put the future there by feeding and clothing your kids and by doing all of the essential chores that keep them whole and well. Yes, you help establish their tomorrow when you weather the storms of your children's illnesses and tantrums and plain old bad days. Your care on a day-to-day basis is what keeps your children moving forward into whatever world they will make. That is worthy of a great big THANK YOU!

But you are doing so much more than that if you are homeschooling your children. You are building tomorrow's leaders. We all know how desperately the world is going to need real leaders so it is absolutely essential that this job be done.

You build the future of mankind every time you sit with your children and teach them about trees or business, music or life. You point the direction the world will walk when you join your children as an educator, sitting through their lessons and gently helping them to see, really see what education is for. Your immediate reward includes being the one to see your children's flashes of understanding and creative genius, their triumphs of sudden understanding and increasing awareness. Those moments are your pay and you are surely better paid than many other professions. Your pay also includes their smiles of joy as they discover who they are and what they can do. Your pay embraces the knowledge that we will have a future. You have seen to it. You have fed and nourished and helped that future to think straight and true. When we are all doing better at some future time, when your children and their children are doing well, you will have had your hand in that day and you should well know it. Your children will know it.

Enjoy your Mother's Day and again, THANK YOU! Consider your children's gifts a part of your pay this week. Don't spend it all in one place.

     Steven Horwich
     May 9, 2010
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

An Open Letter to Home School Families for the New Year

    

New Year's is traditionally a day to reflect, to consider the past, and postulate the future. (It's also a day when a lot of football gets played, but I don't really like football much, so I'm just going to spend the day ROOTING FOR MY LAKERS TO BEAT THOSE PESKY, ROTTEN SACRAMENTO KINGS...sorry, that just escaped before I could grab it...)

We are all aware that this last year has been a difficult one for many people, and for many reasons. We are asked in song, when faced by hard times, to "Look For The Silver Lining", a hit during the Great Depression of the 1930s. As we step into a New Year in the midst of some hard times for many people, I'd like to suggest that there is some silver, and maybe some gold, in those dark, forbidding clouds above.

If you're reading this, then you are probably a homeschooler, or a homeschooler's parent or teacher. That means you have chosen to be a member of the oldest educational institution on Earth. For thousands of years, families have taught their own. Confucius tells us that it was an ancient tradition in China to study along certain lines, certain subjects, in his day. This great Chinese thinker was a contemporary of Plato's. Plato started the first school in the West, in Greece. Plato, too, advised study along certain lines and certain subjects. Both men assumed, by the way, that a child's education and the shaping of that child's life began in the family. Confucius felt that in so far as the family was strong, the nation would be strong as well. I agree. I'll bet that you do, too.

There are so many reasons to homeschool, we don't need to get into them, here. You have your reasons. One of the glimmerings of silver shining down on us is that we can home school. It may require a continuous dance of legal fine print and parental scheduling and financial voodoo, but we can home school and we do home school. Whatever a family's reason to take on this enormous responsibility, in most places you have the right. (There are notable exceptions where one does not have the right to home school, such as Germany. Does that remind anyone of the Great Depression era, too?)

After my wife passed away in 2001, we three pulled together and started homeschooling, as part of my effort to let my children know that I was going to be there, that I wasn't going anywhere. That was an act of faith, by the way. Though I'd been a teacher for many years, I had not designed courses of study in areas outside of the arts up to that time, and I did not know if I could "handle" my daughter and son on an all-day, everyday basis. I just decided that it was the "right" thing to do, and went to work.

The first day I started writing the first history course, I spent some 15 hours, and by the end of that day, I knew that this was not going to go as I had hoped. I was not going to be able to do what I do with creative projects like screenplays, "wing it" (make it up as I go), and get it all done in a week. Creating a workable curricula was going to take me...um, well, at least a few weeks.

The clouds gathered overhead. I was alone with my children, taking full responsibility for their well-being and their education. I was walking away from work I knew and loved, to do something that I didn't want to do and would not have done if I could have found a curricula to satisfy my children's needs. I wasn't making any money doing any of this. As the true magnitude of the task stretched before my horrified eyes, I slowly came to realize that this was going to be the work of years. Those dark clouds started raining on my uncovered head, and for awhile, I was pretty sure I'd relocated to the Amazon. Who knew it could rain that long and that hard? Money became a problem, of course, so I sold my house so I could keep writing the courses.

As homeschoolers, I knew that we had unique opportunities. I no longer homeschool my two children since they've both completed school, but I did homeschool for about 6 years. I had many more than my own children at my house and doing my courses, for a long time. I know it can be a real struggle to be Dad and Teacher, and that when my children decided that they didn't need to listen to "Dad", that meant that they also didn't need to listen to "Teacher". Like all children, mine decided at some point that they know far more than I do about everything. This was a rather painful barrier to get past and it took work on my part. (Still working on it.) But because my children homeschooled with me, they now know me well and I know them. They never fell into the traps many other children struggle with, such as drugs or a violent environment. Homeschooling definitely played a part in this result.

It is now almost eight years later, eight long years of authoring courses day after day. For me, part of the silver lining is that I'm nearly done writing curricula, and will finish sometime early in 2010. In 2009, I was able to spend a few months doing what I love, writing creative pieces. That was a good thing, and I will be doing more of that this year. But another part of my personal silver lining is that I know a lot of children and parents are using the courses I wrote for my children, and that many of them are finding them useful. If someone had told me eight years ago that I would be writing curricula for around a decade, and that many others would find it and use it, I'm pretty sure I would have laughed and then kicked them out of my house. But in following through on the ancient New Year's ritual and considering the past, I do believe that this work has all been done to serve a valid purpose.

As the New Year begins, as I postulate a future, I wish to share my hope for the student. If you are a homeschool student, my hope for you this year is that you learn more this year, and develop more skills this year than you can possibly imagine. I hope the world opens up for you. I hope you find many pieces of yourself, and are able to put them together into a vision of you that you can admire and strive for. And I hope you grow fully aware of how hard your parents and others are laboring on your behalf, and truly find the ability in your heart to respect and admire their contribution. The admiration of others is a quality of great men and women. It is not a sign of weakness, it's a strength.

To you parents, in way of postulating a future, I want to say to you that I believe in you and your families, and I believe in the value of home schooling. I know it's often a very hard road. You've chosen not to take the easy way out and turn your children over to the state, or even a private school. You've decided to maintain your responsibility for your children, and at a level that is considerably higher than most people in this civilization are willing to go to for their kids. I believe that such families and parents are the silver lining in the black clouds hanging over society today. In way of postulating a future, I look forward to you and your children's educational triumphs, as the next generation of leaders step into the world not from our ruinously failed schools, but from the arms and homes of their families.

Happy New Year, homeschoolers!

     Steven Horwich
     December 29, 2009
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

An Open Letter For The Holidays

    

Hi Homeschoolers!

I live in Los Angeles. We don't get snow. Ever. Sometimes we get a little rain, which tends to mystify many of my fellow Los Angelinos. Water falling from the sky?! Is such a thing possible? Surely the Gods are angry, and we must now drive very poorly to show our fear and respect...

Anyway, as Hanukkah and Christmas approach, it's hard to tell that it's the holiday season here. Unless you go into a mall. They find ways to remind you, whether you’d like to be reminded or not.

That said, it is the holiday season. I know it is, because my children have made their demands for presents. My 21 year-old would like a Vespa. I'm not sure what a Vespa is, but if my daughter wants it, I’m sure it is expensive. Her second choice is a digital camera, and I know what they cost. Her first choice is always more expensive than her second choice. Unless she's decided to deceive me this year. (sigh) My soon-to-be 18 year old son says he wants nothing. He is absolutely my favorite child, at least during holiday season. Some of you parents can probably figure out why.

What does the holiday season offer to homeschoolers, specifically? I think the possibilities are nearly endless. First, you don’t need to wait for school vacation to start, because your children are home with you. Start early. Endless day-trips await, if only to look at the Holiday decorations in the neighborhood. Or you can put up some decorations as a family. Make a project out of it. You can do this because your children are at home with you.

Talk to your children and find out what the holidays mean to them. And tell them what the holidays mean to you, since they probably don’t know. Even better, get together with relatives and friends and share your ideas of what the holidays can be and have been. Grandma and Grandpa will have stories to tell, and you should record or video them. I've suggested to a few friends that this is a good time of year to not only break out the video camera, but to get your oldest relatives and friends together and, one by one, ask them to tell their life stories while you record and ask questions. Some of those questions should come from your children! Make it a home school project, an investigation into memory, and the lives of those we love. When finished, watch these films together and then, store them well. Life is nothing if not change, and someday, you will be very happy to have those recordings. By the way, parents, make sure to get your life story on tape for the children, and get them to do theirs, too.

Of course, the holidays have a spiritual significance. Hanukkah celebrates a great victory in the history of the Jewish people, and a miracle. In the Temple of Solomon, a light is always supposed to burn, a display of oneness with God. But the Jewish people, who had just recaptured the temple from bitter enemies, had oil enough to burn for only one day. The oil burned for eight days, a sign of the Jew's on-going close relationship with God. Christmas is, of course, a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem. I think, during the holidays, it's very important to tell the stories that gave birth to the holidays. It’s far too easy to get caught up in a shopping frenzy, or drowned in Christmas elevator music. If you are going to celebrate the holidays, you should make a great point of recalling what they’re really for. You might want to read together at night from the Bible, or some simplified source of the stories. But the stories should be shared.

Reading together is always a good idea. I helped give birth to an event many years ago called "Christmas Stories" (which would have been better entitled "Holiday Stories", but I was ignored on that point). It's two nights a year in December when celebrities raise money for needy children by reading holiday stories and singing holiday songs, some original and some old and beloved. These are performed “live” in front of an enthusiastic audience, and also recorded for radio. It’s still going strong, almost 20 years later. People like to share stories at this time of year, it helps us pull together in shared feeling and experience. I wrote my own book of twenty holiday stories which I like to share with my friends at this time of year. It's that important to me to share ideas and affection during the Holiday season. Reading with your children, and letting them do some of the reading, will do more than make them better readers.

There are many other holiday stories you can share. My family used to sort of have a "movie night", when we’d watch holiday films we selected. Maybe each person in your family could pick their favorite holiday film, and you could all watch, one per evening? This may mean you get to watch A Pokemon Christmas. Start up the popcorn.

Some families like to play holiday music through much of the day, at this time of year. If I might suggest, there's a lot of wonderful classical holiday music. Bach cantatas are exquisite! And there’s always Tchaikovsky's nutcracker suite, and Handel's Messiah. There are recordings of Hanukkah music out there, too, but not enough. And I wonder if some intrepid Cantor out there would ever record the truly haunting, stunning music sung in temples across the world. That would be a holiday gift! You could allow the children to select some music to play, as well. You may end up listening to A Pokemon Christmas...

In any case, the holiday season is the best time of year for family. One hears endless complaints about parents who "can't seem to bond" with their children. Well, bonding is not a matter of money spent, so if you’re unemployed or underpaid, take heart (and get in line with the rest of us)! Bonding requires only a few things — 1) A willingness on you and your children’s part to share time, communication and ideas; 2) Time spent together; 3) The ability on your part to listen to your children, and 4) A small amount of creativity.

Let's look at each of these quickly, and start with willingness. You know that if your children want to spend Christmas with their best friend, you will have a hard time winning them over. Of course, you could always invite the best friend to sleep over, as I often did for my children. If their parents are okay with it, great! I used to treat that like an extended family, and get them a present. But if you start before the holiday strikes, by doing some of the things mentioned above, or other creative things you like to do, that will help set the tone. It is the holiday season , after all, and not just one day of whoopee. Anyway, willingness is everything, I’m afraid. Some children (and their parents) are very happy and willing to spend time together for the holidays, so no problem. But if your children complain that they see you everyday anyway because they are homeschooling, well...they are right about that. Maybe, in such cases, a compromise can be made where they spend Christmas Eve at home, or the first night of Hanukkah, and then spend Christmas Day, or the second day of Hanukkah, with friends. Or switch that around. Communication will be the key to happiness, here. Talk and listen.

Time together can be hard when both parents (or a single parent) must work. When you’re never around, your children will naturally look for other things to do. Too many children escape into TVs and video games, and I'd suggest very strongly that you set a moratorium during the holiday season on these things, or at least severely limit them while you are all home. It's hard to spend time together while your child (or you) is hypnotized by the latest commercials, or while playing the latest horrid video game. Turn these off, they make communication impossible and dull the mind. And by the way, this is where listening to each other and creativity come into play. Ask your children what (other than the boob tube or boob computer) they might want to do. Listen. Come up with ideas of your own and propose them. And work your plans around everyone's schedule by planning a bit ahead.

Almost everyone works, of necessity. But one of our most important jobs as parents is to spend time with our families. After all, the reason we work is simply to support ourselves, our families, and their needs. One of their most important needs is your time and attention.

Happy Holidays! May this holiday season bring your family closer together in shared respect and love.

     Steven Horwich
     December 1, 2009
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 

All About 1st Step --
The Ideas, Techniques and Methods Used,
and How 1st Step Compares with Connect The Thoughts™

    

Sections -- OVERVIEW

STARTER CURRICULUM (ages 4-6)

ELEMENTARY CURRICULUM (ages 7-8)

SUMMATION


OVERVIEW

I've been authoring Connect The Thoughts courses for over nine years. It is specifically for students ages 9-adult. I authored it for this age range because it was initially constructed for my own children who were ages 10 and 14 when I started authoring it full time, over 6 years ago. Since that time I've written and rewritten and rewritten again over 100 courses, but always for two age groups; 9-10 year olds (Lower School), and 11-adult (Upper School).

Being asked by numerous people to attempt a curriculum for younger students, I authored some first attempts about four years ago. These were tried out with success, but I was so caught up in trying to complete CTT that I didn't feel comfortable leaving it, even for a short time, to author younger courses. However what did become clear to me was that I had some interesting ideas as to how to educate younger students...and that, to work, they would require different techniques than CTT courses.

Earlier this year (2008), having completed CTT sufficiently that I feel it's all there, I was again confronted with requests for courses for younger students. I knew I had made a start, but had forgotten what specifically I had done, so I reviewed the courses authored four years earlier. I was surprised to find as much done as I did. I was horrified when I realized how much farther I had to go.

For years, I had been developing unique techniques for CTT that would powerfully assist the student and enable them to understand materials usually considered too difficult for their age group. One of the first things I realized in looking at the courses I'd started writing for students ages 4-6 was that almost none of the techniques I'd developed for CTT were going to work for younger students. The educational goals were different, so the techniques used were going to need to be different.

The goal of Upper School was to provide what today is generally considered a university-level (or better) education in many areas, while developing the student's ability to think and evaluate for himself. I believe that the Upper School curriculum accomplishes this, as you can see from some of the success stories on our site, connectthethoughts.net.

The goal of Lower School was to develop the student's literacy and ability to evaluate information to the point where he or she is prepared for the work in Upper School, while offering them lots of interesting and coordinated information. Again, I believe the Lower School curriculum has proven effective at achieving its goal.

But the goals for 1st Step (curriculum for ages 4 -8) are quite different.

First of all, I realized that for ages 4-6, we might be dealing with many pre-literate students. To do CTT requires fairly good literacy on the student's part, though the courses work every day to increase vocabulary. I knew that a younger curriculum would need to help the student arrive at a level of literacy where Lower School became accessible and possible. This meant that Job One for 1st Step curriculum was to develop literacy, yet 4-6 year olds are often pre -literate. They had to be provided a hands-on, exciting educational experience that would broaden their horizons and move them toward literacy.

On the other hand, usually 7-8 year olds are not pre-literate, they are in the process of developing literacy. I knew we needed to do everything in our power to encourage that development, while providing a more demanding hands-on experience for this tough age group.

Briefly, this told me that we needed TWO sets of all-new techniques, one for ages 4-6 (which we call "Starter Curriculum"); and another we call "Elementary Curriculum" (for ages 7-8).

I went to work, and here's what I came up with.

STARTER COURSES (Ages 4-6, pre-literate)

Who Uses Starter Study Guides

I realized that Starter courses would need to be Teacher (tutor/parent) intensive, as the students were pre-literate and very young. The technique used in CTT of authoring courses with step-by-step lesson plans read and followed by THE STUDENT were not going to work for this age group. Yet, I wanted to provide a step-by-step set of lesson plans which would result in real educational gains (and fun) for the student, and finished solutions for the parent or tutor.

If the student wasn't going to read the instructions, then the Teacher would have to. This meant the step-by-step instructions would have to give the Teacher everything needed to create an educational experience for the student (or students). These study guides are for the teacher's direct use and not the student's.

Scripted Study Guides

This led me to a happy realization. You see, I'm a playwright by profession. I realized what was needed for Starter level was a combination of two things...a step-by-step lesson plan for each day and subject of study...that included a SCRIPT in every lesson plan. I realized I'd need to provide a word-by-word script for the Teacher to read the information to the students. And I knew I could do that.

Hands-on Action-Based

It also became clear that we could not teach science, history, creative writing or living your life courses (which help the student with basic life skills) to 4-6 year olds without finding ways of turning every new idea into action. My feeling was that if the student could experience the information, and not only be told it, they would be far more likely to see its value and to retain it, even at a very young age. So every lesson is filled with structured things to do, using the ideas and information offered in the Teacher's script. These allow the young student to experience and evaluate the information from a perspective appropriate to their age.

Starter Creative Writing

At the Starter level, Creative Writing presented a challenge, of course. Gradually it became clear that what was needed was the simplest possible starting point. In this, the Upper School materials came slightly to the rescue. There is nothing more basic to writing than "what is a word". We use words to describe everything we see, experience, think, know or understand. Knowing this, I had a good starting point for the youngest students, age 4-6, one that worked with limited literacy skills.

This is a teacher intensive level, in fact, the most teacher intensive in all our curricula. The student who cannot write is going to dictate his creations, and gradually take over writing them as he/she progresses through the three years of available courses. The goal is to let the student create unhampered by their literacy limitations! There is no reason why literacy difficulties should stop a student from exercising their creative muscles. And seeing their stories in writing (dictated to and printed by the teacher) can only encourage them to want to do the writing themselves. Or course, a smart tutor will follow the instructions in the courses and gradually turn over the actual work of writing words down to the student.

Starter Reading

And yet, it was also clear that these young students had to learn to read. There are an infinite number of reading programs out there, but they are nearly all based on phonics. I am not going to say that phonics is a poor way to teach a child to read, it has its definite values. But we all know that for nearly every rule in phonics for English, there are many exceptions which somewhat render phonics ineffective as a tool. English is a mutt language, and is the combination of many other earlier languages, borrowing words shamelessly. These languages each had their own rules of pronunciation, and they often do not align with phonics. This factor alone can make English a very hard language to learn.

I did not learn to read through phonics, and I have read very well since age seven. I learned through what I call "word identification". I was asked in 1st grade by my wonderful teacher to go through Webster's Dictionary with her, word by word, aloud. I did, and I learned to look at a word, pronounce it correctly, and remember how it was pronounced and what it meant. I did this with thousands of words that year. By the end of a year that started out with my nearly complete inability to read, I was reading nearly 1000 words a minute. (I was tested, though I guess it probably sounds ridiculous.)

In developing the Starter and Elementary Reading Programs, I "back-engineered" how I learned, and developed a new way for parents and teachers everywhere to teach via word identification. Again, I am not suggesting anyone throw away their phonics program! I am saying that the method presented in 1st Step's Reading Program, used accurately, will result in a student whose literacy should improve quickly. It worked for me, and here it is far more detailed and "user friendly" than how my teacher and I did it, 45 years ago.

Starter Testing

Another significant difference between this level and all the other levels we offer is that Starter has no tests. Not a one. Why on Earth would anyone give a four year old, or even a six year old a test, other than to compare their progress to other students their age? And why should anyone really care how one child compares to another in this or any other regard?

Every child is special and unique. That is actually how most parents want it to be, which is for the best because that is HOW IT IS! Most of us know how particular and special our children are. All children develop in their own way and at their own speed. Every child learns certain things well, and other things with a certain amount of struggle (if at all). Every child has areas of interest they naturally gravitate to and excel in. If tested in their area of interest, they are going to do well. If tested in an area of non-interest, they will not do well. Interest is largely the determining factor of a success or failure in any activity, and interest can only be enhanced (or killed) by teaching techniques, or enforcement techniques, or anything else. Interest is the senior factor in a student's progress, and by this, I mean the interests of the student, not the state or the tutor or the parent.

No test can ever tell you anything other than one of three things: 1) How a student compares with other students in their ability to recall pre-selected and limited data; 2) What he did or did not learn out of a pre-designed body of information, and 3) What skills or understandings a student has acquired based on studies. This first sort of testing is nonsense, for all the reasons described above. Besides, memorization itself is not learning because to learn, information must be more than memorized -- it must be understood and evaluated.

The second sort of test has value, but not for a student who is very young. A body of information to a four year old is useless without practical, hands-on usages. The only tests that matter to this young group is "how are they doing". Are they gaining control over their environment? Are they experiencing life as a wonderful thing, one that is increasingly comprehensible?

So Starter "tests" are buried inside every exercise in every lesson plan! We ask the student to take the information presented in the simplest of terms in the "script" read to them by the teacher, and to do-do-do! In a structured, detailed approach, the student uses everything taught to them. At this level, we present learning as an experiential pursuit.

Starter History

As is true in CTT, I determined to begin the student's experience in History with a sequential accounting. History is best learned (as history ) in order. But we are dealing with pre-literate students in Starter who have no real concept of "hundreds of years", much less thousands. A barrage of famous names and events and places and such seemed too difficult and pointless an approach for the age group.

What was determined instead was to build each history course around a period of human history, or a civilization, delivered in sequence as they occurred. For each era or civilization, the central contributions to human existence would be studied and experienced. In this way, the student's appreciation for the past and how it created the present would be developed alongside an understanding of history.

This also allows the student a lot of hands-on fun, using historical ideas and accomplishments as the impetus for exercises. The key was to take central historical concepts and turn them into focused activities. This keeps the student in action while learning.

Starter Living Your Life Courses

Finally, the "Living Your Life" courses, an experiment successfully begun four years ago. Educating children of such a young age seemed pointless to me without providing them ideas and experiences which would increase their control over the environment and improve their chances for survival.

Children this age are often uninformed when it comes to the most basic survival techniques...what to do when you get lost; how to be safe when playing; how to be safe around cars and streets; how to be safe at home; what to do when someone around them is hurt.

I realize that it is largely a parent's job to teach a child these things. That said, we all live in a very busy world, and sometimes even important jobs slip through the cracks. What's more, it is a school's job to teach a child how to be safe in the highly social environment that is school. But home schoolers don't go to school, and they still need to master these skills. What's more, it seemed upon review that schools, many having a less than stellar track record in the area of safety, could use a little help. And as 1st Step was clearly going to be "hands on" curriculum, it seemed well-suited as a tool to teach children hands-on survival skills in a creative manner.

Starter Summary

Starter curriculum is for pre-literate students. The Teacher has a step-by-step lesson plan in hand, follows the steps, reads aloud materials to the students (and is read to as a part of the reading program in a most unique way...), and guides the students as they experience the information in many creative ways. Tests are passed every hour, and they are essentially "can you understand this information and use it?"

Starter courses require few if any outside study materials. Each course can stand alone and is self-contained, allowing a parent to easily and effectively use them to "fill in gaps" in their student's educational needs. But we think our curriculum works best when used in its entirety, as the methods used and materials presented are coordinated, and compliment each other in ways that strongly enhance the educational experience.

ELEMENTARY (Ages 7-8, beginning literate)

It was very clear that Elementary curriculum required different goals than Starter, and so required yet again different techniques.

How To Get Ages 7-8 Reading Well?

First and foremost as a goal at this level, literacy must be developed. The Reading Program is very effective at this level, but I knew we had to offer something in every lesson plan in every subject that would improve the student's ability to read. So the first decision made was to take the idea of what in Starter was "script", those sections read to the student, and in the Elementary program have those entries (with more information and slightly tougher vocabulary than is Starter) read aloud by the student to the teacher. This reverses the mechanics from Starter to Elementary. This demands of the student that he/she read every hour, and provides the teacher a real indication of daily progress.

This technique also serves to start to unwed the student from a chronic need for the assistance of a tutor. Yes, Elementary is still teacher-intensive, as is Starter. But it is less so than Starter, and increasingly so. A purpose of Elementary is to prepare the student for Lower School, where he is provided far more responsibility and less guidance. In this way, Elementary acts as a bridge into Lower School, while providing an education in and of itself. This was a constant focus in the development of Elementary.

Taking this approach meant that almost every lesson in every subject required a carefully authored article able to be read by a student who is developing literacy skills. This also meant that some difficult concepts had to be expressed in simple language. And it meant I could borrow one technique from CTT -- I could define some of the important or "difficult" words before the student read the materials. Though this was a lot of work, it was clear it had to be done for Elementary to approach the desired result - to have Elementary curriculum serve as a literacy bridge into Lower School, and to be able to use it to improve any student's literacy, whether they are moving into CTT or not.

Reading Program

The Reading Program for 1st Step was designed (as described above) as an answer for the student who either reads poorly or not at all, or who wants to seriously improve their ability to read, even if it is good. The program increases vocabulary rapidly, and is based entirely on the principle of word identification. Given the goal of Elementary level curriculum, the Reading Program stands at the core of what needs to be accomplished. It is designed to work equally well with remedial, average, or advanced readers, and is certainly unique in that regard!

Grammar, Reading and Creative Writing -- A New Approach

Since Elementary deals with literacy, I was also forced to approach a subject I'd avoided to that point, grammar. Dealing with literacy, I could hardly avoid grammar any longer. But how could 1st Step teach grammar essentials in a creative manner and without having to author dedicated courses in grammar? After all, there are plenty of grammar courses out there and no one is trying to reinvent the wheel. (That's why we don't offer mathematics. There are too many good programs in math out there.) We're pretty motivated to keep the number of subjects offered and hours of study required limited through a careful integration of subjects.

Creative Writing was the first curriculum offered in Connect The Thoughts. It was never built to teach grammar, and in fact we ask teachers and parents to please not correct their student's grammatical errors in their work. Our Creative Writing Courses have always been built around an unusual idea...that a non-critical-approach to art is required for a student to feel safe enough to express themselves in artistic terms. There were many success stories that proved this approach was the right one.

Still, for ages 7-8, as it had been determined that literacy was going to be the key, it was clear that some essential grammatical rules would need to be taught. Staring at Creative Writing a while, it finally occurred to me that I could design Elementary Creative Writing in a completely novel way, an approach which would USE grammatical concepts as the springboard for Creative Writing exercises.

Words, as mentioned earlier, are the "basic" in writing, and words are categorized in usage. There are nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc. It occurred to me that I could teach the student what a "noun" was (as an example), and then provide them numerous creative writing exercises using nouns and built around the definition of "noun".

Elementary Living Your Life

As does Starter, Living Your Life teaches the student essential skills. But the skills taught are age-appropriate. At ages 7-8, the student is in a far more "social" environment, and must take more responsibility for his own well-being.

The LYL courses at this level deal with skills and understandings no 7-8 year old should be without. An example of the subjects covered includes first semester studies such as what is time and how to best use it, organizational skills, how to do research, and the uses of money (information which is amplified in history courses). The skills developed will be used by the student nearly every day of their lives.

As is the case with Starter, LYL courses are experiential in nature. The student is provided information and then asked to use it in structured exercises. However, the skills and subjects covered in Elementary are for the more "worldly" age group of 7-8 year olds.

Elementary History

CTT Upper School History is broken into two waves. The first wave (9 courses, at least 3 years of study) teaches history and related subjects in sequence, as does Lower School History. (Upper is far more detailed than Lower School.) Then two additional courses act as the "second wave", considered a "Master's" level of study in CTT. These deal with a summation of history's lessons, and with "Sociology" as defined in the American Heritage Dictionary: The analysis of a social institution or societal segment as a self-contained entity or in relation to society as a whole.

Starter History does the same sort of thing (in the simplest possible way) as Lower and Upper School History. Elementary is structured to do what the Upper School Master's courses do. In a hands-on way, they teach the student about the big ideas that drive history and modern life. First semester subjects include intensive studies of what is history, the history of religion, politics, economics and technology. Future semesters will deal with the great civilizations, leaders, and artists, and their accomplishments.

Every lesson in Elementary History revolves around one important idea to be learned from history, and then "objectifies" the idea, giving the student tangible activities using that idea. This brings the most important ideas to life, and will color the student's understanding of (and enthusiasm for) history throughout the rest of their days.

Elementary Science

Lower and Upper School Science deal with large categories of science and their specifics, such as Geology, Physics, Chemistry, etc. But they both start with a Science Basics course which explains the essential ideas and tools of science.

Elementary again acts as a bridge up to Lower School, and actually provides far more details and activity in the specifics of science and its tools. Semester I covers scientific measurements and tools, and categorization, presenting ideas that are clearly defined and simply expressed (and read aloud, developing reading skills). Then each lesson turns those ideas into activities that make them real and tangible for the student. Vocabulary and reading skills improve as the student "gets his hands dirty" using the most essential of scientific concepts. Science is used to improve reading and vocabulary, while teaching real science.

Elementary Testing

Unlike Starter, there are tests in Elementary, as there are tests for students of this age range in schools everywhere. However, 1st Step's tests align with the philosophy of testing used in CTT. We are only interested in test types two and three -- tests that tell us what the student did not learn (so he can restudy and learn the information needing review), and tests demonstrating competence (which the student does every time he does an exercise well, in every lesson plan), We do not condone the issuing of grades. Why on Earth would anyone grade a 7 year old in anything? Tests and answer guides are provided.

Elementary Summary

Elementary Curriculum is designed to be both a bridge from Starter (or early literacy) to Lower School, and (alternatively) a stand alone curriculum for students, ages 7-8.

Like Starter courses, Elementary courses require few if any outside study materials. Courses are self-contained and can be done independently from the curriculum. Again, this allows a parent or tutor to use them in an effective manner to "fill in gaps" in their student's educational needs. But as always, the best way to experience 1st Step, as with Connect The Thoughts™, is as a replacement curriculum in its entirety.

SUMMATION

We hope this article provides you with a clear idea of the ideas behind 1st Step, and the methods used. More can be learned at my1ststep.com.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™

 
 

A Question of Emphasis

    

Science and Math. These are the subjects our public schools have decided require emphasis. Most private schools have followed in lockstep. Science and math.

Few people today question the importance of studying science and math. They teach one to think connectedly, in patterns and sequences resulting in solutions. They are valuable studies. But science and math are not more valuable than a study of history, the arts, or religion.

A horrifying ignorance has been carefully cultivated through our educational institutions, over the past 30 years. Arts have been systematically "phased out", forcing parents and students to seek extracurricular answers to their hunger for that wonder of human expression. Art that is offered is marginalized. It's "extra credit", "elective", ill-supported by schools desperately preparing students to achieve high test scores...in science and math.

Where will tomorrow's miraculous musicians come from, the artists, the dancers? As arts training in schools we pay for with taxes or tuition becomes ever scarcer, only well-to-do families will be able to support a private, specialized curriculum for their children. Poorer children (read "most of our children") will be left with what they hear on the radio and internet, what they see on TV, and will assume that these are the limits of art. There was no Bach, no Shakespeare. If you don't believe me, ask a few people under age twenty about classical composers or great playwrights. Ask how much you yourself learned about great music, art, theatre from your schooling.

Are we truly prepared to set aside as unimportant, our greatest cultural accomplishments, the heartbeat of humanity? We seem determined to do exactly that.

What of history? It's only the study of how we came to be as we are, and where we are headed. History teaches perspective. History tells the great tale of religion, of faith, of a slow and steady racial climb out of darkness and toward the light of wisdom and knowledge. A study of history provides a lasting sense of human accomplishment, and here we arrive at the great evil of our nation's selection of emphasis in curriculum.

If one did not know better, one might assume that our educational system was intentionally attempting to minimize man's sense of his own accomplishments, our exalted place in the scheme of things. Why would any government willfully support an educational system that required students to abandon or never experience creativity, faith or wisdom, a system grinding life down to scientific theorems and mathematical axioms? Why indeed, unless it was the bizarre intention of that system to have its students know only numbers, until the student, knowing only numbers, must believe he is a number, and only a number.

After all, what's easier to manipulate than a number?

Teach your children well, teach them math and science. But equally, teach them history, art and religion. Provide them a sense of heritage, of their own greatness, to balance the harsh "truths" of a purely physical and soulless universe.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

A Parade of Days

    

History is a succession of the dawning of days, billions of days. It is no less than the tale of our awakening. It is the parade of wonders. History shows mankind to itself with all our glories and flaws, a mirror made not of glass, but rather of experience and life, of flesh and blood, ignorance and discovery.

Is there any study more important than the study of our own steps and missteps? What other study can reap so profound an understanding of all that we are and hope to be?

So why is history provided such slight attention throughout our educational system? Oh, we do make a point of educating our children into a carefully designed understanding of their own nation and its heritage. But no nation is the world. Don't we owe our children a true understanding of the path humanity took to arrive at their generation?

Perhaps the idea of offering a "true understanding" is the problem? The great French writer, Voltaire, called history a "river of lies". He felt that history was "written by the victors", those who won battles and wars, and so what was written was not a true reflection of what had actually occurred.

And yet, with the deepest respect to the French master of letters, history is indeed a river. It is a flood, in fact, of documentation, of proofs, of remnants and clues and artifacts and autobiographies. Much of human history is well documented, from the bones left by our ancestors to the clay business records left in the oldest extant written documents from the times of Babylon. From the Bible to the Magna Carta, from Caesar's memoirs to the story of ancient India found in the Mahabhratha, history is known .

Perhaps that's the problem with studying history...that there's so much of it? In just the past hundred years, so much has happened that a study of the period might take up a man's life, and sometimes does. Yet one can study the overall shape of our past, and come to understand it deeply, with a sincere effort contained in a few school years.

History is our story, from the long night of ignorance, into awareness and civilization. From the dull tentative grasp of primitive existence, to the birth of the first cities in what is modern day Iraq, to the shocking genius of Greece, the profound questing of ancient India, the pinnacle of faith that was Christ, the explosion of Arabic brilliance of the medieval period, to the invention of the modern man through the eyes and pen of Shakespeare, our expanding reach into the universe as finally understood through Galileo's telescope and Einstein's theoretical ponderings, to the landing of a man on the moon...every living person today is a result of this dynamic progression.

Wisdom most often comes from experience. History is the study of the experience of our entire race. What wisdom might await a student there?

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts

 
 

-New- How To Place Your Student in Our Curricula

    

Hi folks!

We've been getting many questions as to placement of students. I wanted to provide you a more definitive approach to making this important decision.  I also wanted to answer certain specific questions (found in italics) I often get regarding placement.  Here it is, with each level of curricula we offer simply explained (including the intended benefits).  I ask that you please really look this over and see if it answers your questions. If it does not, then please do feel free to write me from our sites, or at our free Yahoo! Support Group (which can be joined from our sites easily), and I'll be more than happy to try to answer your questions.  (You can always write me with good news!  Any time!)  Oh, and please consider reading about each level even though you do not have a student for it, as questions are answered along the way that you may need answered.  Thanks!

1st STEP STARTER (ages 5-6, pre-literate) — First, there are four levels of curricula that we make available. The simplest as far as difficulty to read and understand the materials is 1st Step Starter which is generally for students ages 5-6. It is also for students who are pre-literate . This means that they read very little. For students who do not read yet, you really should consider starting with the reading course as well, and frankly, I think that would be a help for all students needing Starter and could be done in tandem with the rest of the curricula. Also the free spelling course for that age group should be used. These can help accelerate the development of reading skills. Free courses can be downloaded on our site from the home page (near the top - center) at any time.  Please feel free to use these not only as "free samples", but as a part of your educational approach.  That's what they're for.  The 1st Step spelling program can be found at 1st Step's home page (which you are probably on if you're reading this):  www.my1ststep.com .

In the first year of Starter (the first two semesters) the student is asked to read simple texts with the teacher's help, but as much as possible the student should be reading to the teacher with minimal assistance. We know this may not happen much at first, but the effort should always be present to wean the student and make them a self-sustaining reader, and that effort should include little or no "criticism".  Reading, especially while the student is this young, must be made to be a successful and gratifying activity, something fun, something looked forward to.  No one likes doing things in which they are continuously corrected or, worse, reprimanded.  In this respect a child is little different from you or I — except that they are more likely to trust you and respond with faith in what you say.  To tell a child that he is a "bad reader" may confirm for him that he is, indeed, a "bad reader" and act as a significant roadblock in any future effort to get them to read.

In the second year the texts become increasingly longer and more difficult.  The idea is to prepare the student for the literary demands of the next level of study.  The vast majority of the text at the Starter level is mono-syllabic (one syllable) text.  In this way, over a two year period, the student increasingly develops the ability to identify and master small words.  (We do not employ phonics, though it's pretty easy to integrate the use of phonics into our program if you like.  We use a form of Word Identification instead.)

In short, Starter is principally concerned with developing two skills in the student — early literacy and the willingness (and ability) to express their ideas, both creative and "practical".

There is no available reading test for Starter because it is for pre-literate students. One does not have to have had much earlier reading experience, though clearly the better a student reads, the better.  The final complete semester for Starter should be available in its complete form by around July 10, 2010, though several of the courses are available now. The first three semesters are available and are complete. Each semester represents approximately 20 week's worth of study (with about 2 weeks off for holidays, etc, which is about what it averages in the United States as an example.)

Starter courses in History and Science are particularly hands-on. They present and focus on ideas rather than particulars, and offer the student things to do to make those ideas comprehensible and of use. The student does begin to learn about science and history through various approaches. Each course is targeted to provide specific understandings related to the subject. The student also has a Creative Writing course each semester that is semester-long, and which is almost entirely structured to allow them to express themselves in the most creative way possible while offering simple basics about the writing of stories. And finally the student has Living Your Life courses. These important courses could be considered "life skills" courses. They teach the young student all about safety, health, and related issues at a level "real" for the age group, while developing reading skills.

Question: Does a student need to do all of the program or can we use just the parts we're interested in?   Answer: Each course is pretty much free-standing and can be done all by itself. The same can be said for a subject (such as History, or Living Your Life ). They work best, of course, in tandem as they were designed, but we have many reviews and testimonials to the fact that our courses work very well for students even if that course is all that was done.

Question: Can I start a student younger than age five if they are already reading?   Answer: You can. I just personally feel that's a bit young to start "school". If a student younger than around five reads well, I would certainly read to them and have them read to me each day. I'd experience the world with them. I don't think I'd start "school" yet, though. It’s a personal preference.

Question: Should I work on developing my child's reading skills to some extent before starting?   Answer: Yes, if you can. The better the child reads, the easier the work here will be for them. This level is intended to help develop reading skills, but it may be slow going if the student has not already started doing so by age five.

Question: Can an older student do this level if they really don't read well? Answer: Yes, that’s what it's for. This level is more tutor-intensive than the other levels because each lesson has reading as a part of it and the student is expected to need help. If I had a student who was truly reading challenged and they were significantly older, I'd still start them at 1st Step Starter.

Question: Do you provide any math?   Answer: Nope. There are many good math programs out there. We usually recommend Saxon math up to their 8/7 book. We do not recommend that book or their program after that level (such as Algebra). But it's a good program for younger students and they have a homeschool version that works well with our curricula.

Question: Do you provide P.E.?   Answer: Not in 1st Step, though we do offer a few electives for ages 9-adult in Connect The Thoughts. You’ll need to find appropriate P.E. activities for your student.

You can find out much more about Starter courses by looking over their descriptions and samples of almost every course we offer at this link: www.my1ststep.com/starter.php

 
 

1ST STEP ELEMENTARY (ages 7-8, early literate/developing literacy) — The next level up is Elementary, for ages 7-8 generally. It is also for students who have developed some reading skills and are ready to push those in preparation for more serious studies. (We call this phenomenon "developing literacy".)

As in Starter, the level of literacy required in each course increases. But the essays or articles read in Elementary grow longer and provide more information on the subjects than in Starter. The student receives diminishing reading assistance and the words used become steadily more complex. We are, however, still principally concerned with the development of literacy, and of the students willingness to express their ideas.

Question: Does a student need to have done Starter before doing Elementary?    Answer:  No, they do not. Pretty much the same subject matter is covered (with additions to what is covered, and in complexity). But they do need to be reading more than a little before doing Elementary. It is not for the student who just isn't reading yet.

To that end, there is a reading test available for Elementary. It is actually a sample lesson taken for a course, the idea being that if the student can read the lesson and do the exercises based on what was read, they can probably do this level of work. Here's the link to the reading test: www.my1ststep.com/elementary--reading-test.php

As in Starter, the student studies History and Science. But in Elementary the materials studied become more involved. More information is communicated and made use of. Creative Writing is again done each semester, and in the case of Elementary a unique approach has been used. The parts of language are taught (nouns, verbs, etc) and are each used as the springboard for creative activities. In this manner the student improves their reading skills, learns about sentence structure and language and is at all times challenged and encouraged to create. Finally, the Living Your Life courses at the Elementary level help provide the student an understanding of the world they have joined into as 7-8 year olds — and prepares the student to deal more effectively and safely with older students and the harder work to come. (By the way, I have been told by numerous parents that these courses work well for older students as well whose reading skills are not up to the next level. The courses are challenging and offer a lot of information.)

Here is a link you can use to find out more about the courses offered at this level, and even look at samples of each course. (The entire Elementary program is complete and available for two years/four semesters.): www.my1ststep.com/elementary.php

There are many articles and "FAQS" (Frequently Asked Questions) available at our site that you can read to get a firmer grasp of how the 1st Step Curricula works. Here are links: http://www.my1ststep.com/articles.php http://www.my1ststep.com/faq.php

There are also many "Success Stories" you can read to get an idea of how students, parents and teachers respond to 1st Step. Here's a link: http://www.my1ststep.com/success.php

 
 

CONNECT THE THOUGHTS (CTT) LOWER SCHOOL (ages 9-10) — The next educational level in our curricula jumps into Connect The Thoughts, and is "Lower School". It is for students ages 9-10, or for students ready for more complex studies but who may not have the literacy skills needed for Upper School. There are students not ages 9-10 who flourish on this level, some younger and some older.

It is assumed by this level that students read fairly well. Work starts with a set of study skills courses intended to prepare the student for the more difficult materials to follow. These simple courses improve all of a student's studies (including math, which we do not offer). A student starts with our free How To Do Connect The Thoughts Course. This course can be downloaded right now at this link: www.connectthethoughts.net

We strongly recommend a student do this free course before you purchase any courses! In this way you can see if Connect The Thoughts is a good "fit" for your student without any financial investment.

They next do the most popular course, Information – Right or Wrong, followed by Lower School - How To Do Research. These courses will help provide the skills needed as the student moves into more complete studies. There is a free spelling program that should be used each week, and which uses a unique approach (not phonics) as you’ll see. Thousands of people have used the spelling program successfully. There is a reading program as well which can help improve reading, and which also serves as a literature guide.

Once educational essentials are more or less mastered, the student starts studies in History, Science and Creative Writing. These are more detailed than in 1st Step Elementary. Vocabulary is carefully developed in almost every lesson plan, as we are still preparing the student for the more complex work ahead (and for life). In addition, Geography is covered in many lesson plans, and a gradual understanding of where things are in the world is steadily developed throughout Lower and Upper School.

There are also Arts electives made available. These are in the areas of music (theory and keyboard), animation (for students who like to draw and are already good at it), and acting. There are also elective courses in 11 areas of current events made available, but these should generally be reserved for Upper School as they deal with subjects that may be a bit severe for younger students (such as world hunger, human rights abuses, etc.). There are also many Creative Writing / History electives this age group can take advantage of. These explain subjects and then offer a chance for creative expression in writing regarding those subjects, and include Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, New Years, Halloween, Independence Day and a myriad of other holidays. (There's even one a student can do for their own birthday!) Finally, there are "life skills" courses such our best-selling Manner's Course that helps the student understand the best ways to treat others, and to expect to be treated by others. Many students do this one in the first semester, right after doing the educational skills or "basics". (The full two year or four semesters of Lower School and all electives are currently available.)

Question: Does a student need to have done any 1st Step before starting Lower School?    Answer: Absolutely not. The Lower School level is "free-standing". The student must be able to read well and that's it. If they know nothing about history, science, writing or you name it, they'll learn about it here, though the information provided in Upper School is again more complex and thorough (by far).

Question: Should a student do Lower School if they did do 1st Step Elementary?    Answer: Yes. The materials are more detailed (by far) than Elementary, and the reading/vocabulary/geography skills alone will be of great use. It is the next step.

Question: Is my student able to read well enough for Lower School?    Answer: Here's the link to the reading test, samples from the level. Just have your student do the lesson plan and follow the simple directions: www.connectthethoughts.net/lower--reading-test.php

Question: What should I do about Math as my student gets up to Algebra and beyond what you recommend regarding Saxon Math?    Answer: Truly, I don't have a great answer for this question, and I apologize. There are many, many math programs out there and each is unique. I'm afraid that math is such a detailed and specific subject that the method used to teach each a student beyond basic math should almost be tailored to the student. You'll need to look around and, again, I do apologize for that.

Question: Do you have a grammar course?    Answer: I do not. I do make a recommendation for one that worked well for my children if you'd like to write me through our sites or at our Yahoo Group. That said, 1st Step Elementary Creative Writing courses all teach basics of grammar, but they do not provide a thorough education in that area.

You can look at each course description plus free samples of nearly every Lower School course at: www.connectthethoughts.net/lower.php

 
 

CONNECT THE THOUGHTS (CTT) UPPER SCHOOL (ages 11-adult) — The next level of curricula is Upper School. A student who struggles to read may have some real difficulty with this, though I've personally worked with students who developed the needed skills (rapidly) as they did this level, and largely because of how the courses on this level are structured. Some students who read and think very well have started Upper School before age 11. Many adults have done these courses.

Everything stated about Lower is true of Upper School curricula. The student who has not done them in Lower School would do the free How To Do CTT Courses Course and then Information — Right Or Wrong. However, the student would then do the Upper School version of How To Do Research, far more detailed than the Lower School version and with more tools the student will need. Even if a student did the Lower School version (say two years earlier), they should do the Upper School version. They can then do Manners if they haven’t yet, and even You Or Them — Control Over Your Life, an important extension to Information — Right or Wrong which helps the student spot attempts in the world and in their study to control them with misinformation, poor information, or even duress.

Students would then proceed into Upper School History and Science. As to Creative Writing, if they have done none from Connect The Thoughs so far they would start at Creative Writing I, even if they are already writing and pretty creative. A student who has no problem coming up with ideas would in Upper School skip Creative Writing II, however, and go from Creative Writing I to Creative Writing III, and forward from there.

All the electives from Lower School can be continued in the order they're presented in Upper School. For instance, one who did Animation I in Lower School would not do it again, but instead simply continue on to whatever level of Animation is next in line from where they are and what they have completed in Animation.

Question: Can a student who has done no 1st Step of Lower School do Upper School?    Answer: Absolutely, that's how it’s built to be done. Just do as described above and start with the educational basics courses.

Question: Should a student who did Lower School start at the start of Upper?    Answer: Yes. The materials presented stretch literacy skills, develop understandings of the subject with far more information and active requirements, and are in every way more challenging than in Lower School.

Question: Will a student find themselves studying certain points in history or science again, if they studied them at lower levels?    Answer: Yes they will, but with far more information and with a greater emphasis of the student's ability to understand and use the information in their life. The student is now approaching their adult years. The challenge of Upper School reflects the challenges life will throw their way soon. Yes, there are many redundancies as to what is studied, but the amount of material (detail) presented is far greater in Upper School, so there’s a lot of "new" studies about old subjects. Your students should feel properly challenged.

Question: Could an adult use these courses?   Answer:  Absolutely, and many have. They can be used to round out an education you may feel was not adequate, or as an extension to the education you have received. There are some courses that I consider "Master’s" courses. These include all the Creative Writing VI courses, each one dealing in a specialized area of writing (for a profession) and each taking not much less than a year, most likely, to complete. History X and XI are Master's courses dealing with sociology and should not be done by anyone who has not studied history extensively (as the Upper School student has by the time he/she gets to these courses).

Here is a link you can use which provides a sample lesson as a reading test. Again, just follow the directions and you’ll have a good idea whether or not your student can read at the level required for Upper School: www.connectthethoughts.net/upper--reading-test.php

Here’s a link that you can use to read about Upper School, read about each course and see free samples: www.connectthethoughts.net/upper.php

Here are links to many articles and "FAQS" (Frequently Asked Questions) regarding Connect The Thoughts, which will provide you a far more detailed idea of what we do and our educational philosophy: www.connectthethoughts.net/articles.php , www.connectthethoughts.net/faq.php

Here is a link to "Success Stories" you can look over at your leisure to get a better idea of how students, parents and teachers respond to Connect The Thoughts. www.connectthethoughts.net/success.php

I sincerely hope you find this of use, and that it answers many of your questions. Thank you for your interest in 1st Step and Connect The Thoughts!

     Steven Horwich
     June 3, 2010
     Connect The Thoughts™
     1st Step™