http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn
This guy is a developmental psychologist and what he has to say is pretty interesting. For me, he's preaching to the choir!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
so busy
The egghead has been so busy. Weekends in the country, trips to the lake, laundry. The laundry never ends. Never ever ever.
anyhoo, let's talk about proximal learning.
Proximal learning is the idea that someone who knows a little bit more than you can teach you something better than someone who knows a lot more than you do. Or it may be that kids pick stuff up from all sorts of sources and learn thru some sort of freaky osmosis. Ok Ok I'll look it up.
(imagine a pause here, a long one because Stephen Colbert is doing something with a breast pump so I need to hit rewind on Tivo)
Oh my was I off base. So proximal learning means that learning is not linear. Here's a quote.
Vygotsky introduced the social aspect of learning into constructivism. He defined the "zone of proximal learning," according to which students solve problems beyond their actual developmental level (but within their level of potential development) under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. It means challenge them but in a reasonable way. I think. Note to self, look stuff up before i start the post. Not during. I know I caould go back and edit and no one would be the wiser but that seems like cheating.
My whole point for bringing this up was that Amelia's friend is reading very well and was helping Amelia to read a book this weekend. Now Amelia wants reading lessons everyday and is working through some Dr. Seuss books. Des wants to read more because Amelia is. I guess this doesn't have anything to do with proximal learning after all. Or does it? Is there a bigger egghead out there who can explain this to me? What proximal learning is, not the monkey see,monkey do approach to children learning how to read.
anyhoo, let's talk about proximal learning.
Proximal learning is the idea that someone who knows a little bit more than you can teach you something better than someone who knows a lot more than you do. Or it may be that kids pick stuff up from all sorts of sources and learn thru some sort of freaky osmosis. Ok Ok I'll look it up.
(imagine a pause here, a long one because Stephen Colbert is doing something with a breast pump so I need to hit rewind on Tivo)
Oh my was I off base. So proximal learning means that learning is not linear. Here's a quote.
Vygotsky introduced the social aspect of learning into constructivism. He defined the "zone of proximal learning," according to which students solve problems beyond their actual developmental level (but within their level of potential development) under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. It means challenge them but in a reasonable way. I think. Note to self, look stuff up before i start the post. Not during. I know I caould go back and edit and no one would be the wiser but that seems like cheating.
My whole point for bringing this up was that Amelia's friend is reading very well and was helping Amelia to read a book this weekend. Now Amelia wants reading lessons everyday and is working through some Dr. Seuss books. Des wants to read more because Amelia is. I guess this doesn't have anything to do with proximal learning after all. Or does it? Is there a bigger egghead out there who can explain this to me? What proximal learning is, not the monkey see,monkey do approach to children learning how to read.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
More to-do's
Visit my brother in japan with Des and Amela-I'm going to give this a surprisingly high 85% chance of completion. All the stars seem to be in alignment:we have a free place to stay,I have a ton of frequent flier miles so airfare will be reduced, Ray is being very supportive. We just need passports and Finn has to be going to sleep at night without nursing. Piece of cake!
Write a novel 4-7% I like to write, no I love to write but I have never had the discipline to do it regularly. I think I also get bogged down with the idea that it has to be great. I also have serious time constraints right now. My friend got me to sign up for NaNoWriMo last year but I couldn't keep up. Grandma Moses started painting when she was, well, a grandma so I'll give myself time on this one.
Organize my craft closet and a finished room in my basement. Oh lord, this should be 100% but it has become such a huge job that I'm overwhelmed. I actually looked to see if one of those organization shows needs volunteers. I have no desire to be on TV. I just want them to come and do the work for me!
Write a novel 4-7% I like to write, no I love to write but I have never had the discipline to do it regularly. I think I also get bogged down with the idea that it has to be great. I also have serious time constraints right now. My friend got me to sign up for NaNoWriMo last year but I couldn't keep up. Grandma Moses started painting when she was, well, a grandma so I'll give myself time on this one.
Organize my craft closet and a finished room in my basement. Oh lord, this should be 100% but it has become such a huge job that I'm overwhelmed. I actually looked to see if one of those organization shows needs volunteers. I have no desire to be on TV. I just want them to come and do the work for me!
Friday, July 18, 2008
My to-do list
Here are some ideas that I have and the chance(in percentage form) that they will be accomplished:
Start a newsletter for the families of HVSS, actually an idea that another mom and I discussed:
likely hood of me seeing it through-14% likely hood with other parent involved 40-60%
organizing a conference for the parents of sudbury students from all over:
making a list of topics that I think would be interesting 98%
actually organizing a conference around it 2-3%
Chartering a bus and organizing a trip to the bronx zoo this summer:
if I make the phone call to inquire about the bus in the next three days and it's not too expensive-98%
if I don't make the initial call in the next three days :1%
Start a newsletter for the families of HVSS, actually an idea that another mom and I discussed:
likely hood of me seeing it through-14% likely hood with other parent involved 40-60%
organizing a conference for the parents of sudbury students from all over:
making a list of topics that I think would be interesting 98%
actually organizing a conference around it 2-3%
Chartering a bus and organizing a trip to the bronx zoo this summer:
if I make the phone call to inquire about the bus in the next three days and it's not too expensive-98%
if I don't make the initial call in the next three days :1%
It's a facebook miracle!
Once upon a time, in high school, I was really close friends with this girl. Best friends. We went to different schools but we hung out every weekend and we were in this methodist youth group together and it was great.
Senior year was very difficult for me. My grandmother had passed away and I was living with my grandfather and sort of running the house. Plus school pressures and some other family stuff. I was a mess. At the same time, I actually started to make friends with the people from my school(everyone thought I was a big time nerd-which I was but there are many facets to the egghead-and didn't know that I was running off to Manhattan and getting into all sorts of mischief).
Some of my new friends did not like my old friend and when we had a very minor argument I chose to blow it out of proportion and basically dropped her.
It was really wrong of me and it was so out of character, not something I was in the habit of doing before or since. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life but my mistreatment and lack of loyalty towards my friend is something I really regret.
So fast forward 20 years and a mutual friend hooked us up againon where else, facebook. I was able to apologize, she was able to forgive, we have had some wonderful email exchanges and are making plans to get together. Even though i had forgiven myself I still feel fortunate that I had a chance to make amends to her. It was really nice.
Senior year was very difficult for me. My grandmother had passed away and I was living with my grandfather and sort of running the house. Plus school pressures and some other family stuff. I was a mess. At the same time, I actually started to make friends with the people from my school(everyone thought I was a big time nerd-which I was but there are many facets to the egghead-and didn't know that I was running off to Manhattan and getting into all sorts of mischief).
Some of my new friends did not like my old friend and when we had a very minor argument I chose to blow it out of proportion and basically dropped her.
It was really wrong of me and it was so out of character, not something I was in the habit of doing before or since. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life but my mistreatment and lack of loyalty towards my friend is something I really regret.
So fast forward 20 years and a mutual friend hooked us up againon where else, facebook. I was able to apologize, she was able to forgive, we have had some wonderful email exchanges and are making plans to get together. Even though i had forgiven myself I still feel fortunate that I had a chance to make amends to her. It was really nice.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
My first read along (RAL)
I'm on this thing called Ravelry, it's social networking for the busy fiber artist. As I believe I may have said before, I mostly go on to talk about Battlestar Galactica but today I saw a new group was started for a read along for Democracy in America by that 19th century dreamboat Alexis de Tocqueville. So get ready for lots and lots of posts about this book.
Of course, I'm not exactly sure how a read along works. My guess is my friend will post a comment explaining it to me in 5,4,3,2,1....
Of course, I'm not exactly sure how a read along works. My guess is my friend will post a comment explaining it to me in 5,4,3,2,1....
Monday, July 14, 2008
Odds and ends
Amelia burst into tears as I was making dinner saying she didn't want to be a girl because a boy at camp was making fun of the girl's bathroom. Des confirmed that this boy is quite mean and went so far as to characterize him as "Captain of the Meanies". That made Amelia laugh and all was well.
Amelia was talking about Cady's prowess at Duck,Duck,Goose "Yo, Cady can run fast. The 5 year old in her circle couldn't catch her." It is very odd to hear your child say "Yo."
We saw Wall-E tonight. I asked the kids what they thought the movie was about "Well, the people couldn't live on earth anymore because WALL-E made too much garbage. And they were fat." When I asked Cady what her favorite part was she said "I'm keeping that a secret." When I asked her if she understood the movie she said "No but I like candy."
Amelia was talking about Cady's prowess at Duck,Duck,Goose "Yo, Cady can run fast. The 5 year old in her circle couldn't catch her." It is very odd to hear your child say "Yo."
We saw Wall-E tonight. I asked the kids what they thought the movie was about "Well, the people couldn't live on earth anymore because WALL-E made too much garbage. And they were fat." When I asked Cady what her favorite part was she said "I'm keeping that a secret." When I asked her if she understood the movie she said "No but I like candy."
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