Growth Or Momentum Or Something!

 

Two thirds of the way through a task I saw my kid was starting to struggle so I asked "Do you want to stop here?" and she said, "I am determined to continue!"
  
This is an excellent sign for multiple reasons. It means her general background stress level has gotten low enough that she has the capacity to handle brief new stress as a challenge instead of as one more difficult thing to handle when she's already barely hanging on.
   
It means the homeschooling stuff I've set up is engaging to this particular student.
   
And it means she trusts me to let her take breaks when she needs them so she doesn't need to take a break every time she's allowed in case the next stretch of academic-ish stuff is long.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science!

Image
Erlenmeyer flasks behind a wok in a kitchen cabinet I said in my last post that my kid's "understanding of concepts and facts in multiple areas of science is excellent." Already knowing nearly every fact and concept presented in our district's gifted science classes made those classes boring. The lack of intellectual stimulation meant there was no "hook" to make graphing or writing engaging. When people talk about 2e kids having "spiky" profiles or asynchronous skills, this is the disconnect they're talking about. If plotting points on a graph results in a surprising curve that furthers your understanding of a concept, then it feels worthwhile. Someone who already knows that curve and the concepts behind it will find plotting those points tedious. Practice is more effective when it feels worthwhile.  Our family is knowledgeable and science-minded so the kid learned some stuff from casual conversation. The rest, the bulk of it, came from YouTub...
Read more

Facts Versus Skills: Asynchronous Development

Image
  Photo by  Conscious Design  on  Unsplash Grownups who work with 2e (twice exceptional) kids talk a lot about spiky profiles and asynchronous development. Sometimes that means kids learn multiplication long before reading, or learn to analyze literature before getting smooth at arithmetic. But sometimes it shows up within a subject. Learning about a new topic often involves learning facts, concepts, skills, and the ability to notice details. When I started taking yoga classes I was okay at noticing and imitating the teacher’s arm and leg positions, but I didn’t notice whether her torso was straight or bent so initially I did some poses wrong in predictable beginner ways. Repeatedly hearing instructions, doing poses, and occasionally getting specific corrections from the teacher taught me to notice and imitate torso positions.  I quickly learned the facts of where to place hands and feet for downward dog pose (adho mukha svanasana). Then I learned the concept th...
Read more

8th Grade Homeschooling Soft Opening

Image
  When I was a kid back in the 1980s I occasionally heard about stores having grand openings or grand re-openings. It wasn't until well into adulthood that I heard of soft openings where a store quietly lets a few people in to test their systems and processes. And Lo! Eighth grade homeschooling began today, the first Monday in September! And it is not a big deal. For one thing, no schooling is starting before 2:00 PM so the teenager can sleep in and get moving slowly.   For another thing I have changed my (unspoken, emotional, subliminal) goal from what public school optimally should do for a 2e student in every subject to doing better than public school was doing in some subjects. And by "better" I mean prioritizing and supporting my kid's mental health over academic achievements while encouraging some intellectual growth. Language Arts: Critical analysis of media and journalism is already very good. Familiarity with some literature classics is good. Grammar is good....
Read more