Are there any RC users here? This curriculum didn't exist when I was homeschooled, but it's basically what I did except for the structure (5-6 hrs a day, sitting at a desk, no sugar/tv, etc). I took myself through the Saxon series and read for hours a day from any of the books my parents had on hand. I'd write a book report for every book I read, but I wasn't writing every day. I definitely plan to use this "curriculum" (homeschool method) with my own kids. I already have a large library of classic fiction, science, and historical texts. I'll be adding quite a few more titles drawn from other book lists. I don't plan to print books from the RC cds. I'll use the library, used books stores, and maybe buy an e-reader...
The Robinson curriculum is vastly improved now by use of an e-reader. I plan to use this methodology myself, but not purchase the CDs. It's all available free now online. between... www.manybooks.net www.libriovox.org www.mainlesson.com google book www.ccel.org
Wow. I checked out the website. Whew. My only comment is that it doesn't seem to take in account the learning styles of all children. It's an amazing ideal, though. I think that can be accomplished in other ways. My children are fairly independent learners, I'm "here" to help, but I'm not a labor intensive teacher, unless they really need my help. The NO TV at all thing scares me. LOL I think i could do it with a DVD player, maybe. I'm glad his children thrive, and I'm sure others do as well, but....I can tell just by looking it would not be a good fit for MY family...but I can definitely see how it would fit for others - I KNOW people who's kids would thrive under this method. Interesting, I'd never heard of it before. Curious to hear stories of it in action.
Well... my .03 cents for what its worth... Not a chance I would ever even think to try something like this with my kids. The entire website looks like a mad scientist experiment. My 15 yr old daughter IS a self learner, she does most of her work on her own, with little help from me. BUT, we do science experiments together, she will read to me funny stories that she is reading, there is still a lot of parental interaction and I don't want it any other way. Here are some things on the website that stood out to me: *When your eight-year-old child is all alone at his large desk in a quiet room with his Saxon 65 book and has been there three hours already—with most of that time spent in childhood daydreams —and says, "Mommy, I don't know how to work this problem," give him a wonderful gift. Simply reply, "Then you will need to keep studying until you can work the problem." I am one of the strictest parents I know. This is one of the reasons I do homeschool my kids. I don't want them influenced by kids who are allowed to run wild, misbehave, dress like little hoochie mamas and think its ok to wear a face full of make up at 14. But I will be damned if I am going to throw my kid in a room by him/herself at age 8 and tell them to just figure it out. *Give the children a large breakfast (We eat only two meals each day.), and then consign them to five hours of work as described above - six days per week at least ten months per year. This sounds barbaric to me. I took my kids out of school so they were not sitting behind a desk 5 hrs a day, 5 days per week, 9 months out of the year. Why would I do that to them at home? *Children also easily understand that they are different from adults. While sugar and television are not good for adults, moderate amounts of these vices can be considerably less harmful to adults than to children in their formative years. Maybe my kids are strange, but all four of them NEVER understood why things are different for adults then they are for kids until they were older. They learned to trust what I say, that there is a reason for it, but that doesn't mean they understood it. And, if you take away MY tv, I will cry. I am all for limiting mindless blather on tv, but there are a TON of very good educational show and I do not believe keeping a tv in the house is detrimental. I can't imagine using a curriculum like that for my kids. I think I would be preparing my children to spend an awful lot of $$ on therapists when they are adults.
Oh yeah... I definitely wouldn't integrate the smaller details of how Dr. Robinson ran his homeschool/family-life: mealtimes, hours spent sitting at a desk, tv/sugar, no/minimal parental involvement, etc. I take those as his example of their lifestyle, but *not* requirements. The principle of the plan is what I like (science/math, reading, writing, emphasis on independent learning). I also like how adaptable it is.
This is exactly what I plan to do, too. I'm slowly warming up to the idea of buying an e-reader. It's a big step! I love my books, but an e-reader makes so much sense as far as price and storage space.
I didn't read those to be the smaller details, those ARE the details. Leave your kid alone with the books and let them figure it out. What exactly are you loving about this curriculum if you are not planning on following the recommendations? Its like me giving you directions on crate training your dog, but you choose to do it without the crate.
But isn't that the beauty of homeschooling? We can take bits and pieces of methods and curriculums and tailor them to our own homeschooling situation? I don't think it's possible for me to follow one homeschooling method perfectly-as-perscribed. My family is unique in its own needs, and it's part of my job to research and piece things together to find the best fit for us. And that specific fit might need to adapt over the years, too. I would never follow anyone's advice perfectly when it involves my children and homeschool. So while I am strongly attracted to the nuts and bolts of the RC curriculum, I do not consider his families personal eating habits, specific study times & locations, and low-parental involvement to be a major part of the method. I do want each of my children to have a dedicated desk/table space for their daily deskwork (math, science and writing). I will require a certain number of hours for desk work each day, but that'll start out as very little and grow increasingly with age and ability. Reading can be done anywhere. That doesn't have to be at a desk. So actual desk time would be, at most, 3 hours a day towards the end of highschool. I like it's simplicity and adaptability; reading, writing, and arithmetic for 5 to 6 days a week, with an increasing amount of independence as the children get older. I love the Saxon math curriculum. Classic literature and historical non-fiction is easily found all over the web and in libraries. Electives and extracurricular activities can be done afterwards. I am a big advocate of self-teaching, but this does not mean I will refuse to help them. They'll need more help at younger ages, and less by the time they reach highschool.
Self teaching? My son wouldn't graduate until he was about 40. He'd spend the first 15 years daydreaming.
I know you directed this question at ardeur, but it helped clarify something in my mind. I considered the Robinson Curriculum, and like many things about it. While I would be happy using the content, I cannot see myself or my husband embracing the specific context that Dr. Robinson found worked for his family. For me, the value issue with the Robinson Curriculum is the content, *not* the methodology described. As it is, we don't use RC, we follow a fairly classical-based education in terms of content...but we use Charlotte Mason methodology. It's what works for my kids - everyone is learning and everyone is happy. Just my thoughts.
the genius of the Robinson method is that you teach your children how to teach themselves. this is the central plank of his philosophy. I think that is sound and useful. the extraneous details (e.g. no sugar, no TV, etc.) are optional. and I agree....it is foolish to expect to be able to just lock your kid in a room and expect him to learn math. but you can teach your child to teach himself. I don't think you do this by locking him in a room...
I am a college prof and this semester I took on some extra classes to help out one of the schools where I teach. As a result I heavily overloaded and it affected the amount of hands on work I could do with the kids. What saved me is that, since my ds14 was 8, we have used a checklist. MOST student work can be done on one's own - Math review (not the intro lesson on how to do the work - do not agree with Robinson; even college students have a prof to initially explain the concept), spelling, handwriting, all reading, chapter notes on the reading, simple reinforncement worksheets - all that the students can do on their own. I put all the work they need to do for the day on a checklist. There are some subjects they need me for - grammar, writing, math lessons, and "together" activities we do as a group, but the kids know that the remainder of the work needs to be done on their own. I am available if they have to ask a question, but they can get it all done. Basically it is the idea that kids CAN teach themselves if given the opportunity, but HOW you go about doing that is up to the individual family. And though this semester killed me, and I missed my kids dearly (won't do a semester like this again for a long time), they kept up on their work beautifully and accomplished a lot, and they are proud of themselves because they did it mostly on their own. So I like the Robinson philosophy because I have seen it in action, but not is application of it. I used my own application. If you want to see what my checklists and our schoolwork looks like, I have a lot on my familyd.50megs website listed below- you can take a look at it and see how we do it. FYI, we were doing this approach before I even heard of Robinson. Good luck!
I guess, then, by those definitions, I follow the RC without even knowing it! LOL My kids have a schedule, they know what to do each day, and for the most part, only our read-alouds and Science are done together. My kids are very independent learners...so much so, that when they want to know something, if I don't know the answer, they look it up themselves. So, wow. Guess I'm doing it without realizing it! LOL
I fully agree that kids need to be able to work indepedently and become self starters. When I first met my daughter at age 7 she could/would not do her homework by herself at all. She is now 15 and does her work independently and gives me absolutely no problems. My 5 yr old is at the point where I can paper clip off a page or two in her ETC books and put a few math sheets in her workboxes and she does work indepedently. But I am here for them if they do need me. I think the RC is going to an extreme, kids don't need to be isolated to be able to learn to work independently.
I think the original idea with Robinson is that this family has and operates a family business or a working farm or something like that, so when the mom (who had intended to homeschool all her kids herself) was getting all this stuff together for her kids, knowing that she was dying and not going to be able to be there for all of them to grow up, and knowing that Daddy had a job too and wouldn't be available all day every day either, so the kids would have to do it themselves - came up with the idea that they would have a great education if they just learn the math and read tons of great books, which were out of print so they could be trusted to be "sound literature", and learn to write. Of course, you have to spend a lot of time teaching the beginners HOW to read and write, HOW to do math, but they felt Saxon was THE self-teaching math (I haven't found it to be so), and after they could read, they would just read. If I'm not mistaken, they've tweaked it since, and now there are tests you can give if you are in the mind to give tests to prove progress, or help documentation, or whatever, based on what was lined out for each year. I think originally the idea was to just discuss with dad and write daily for dad to read when he had time. I think Mrs. Robinson came up with the best idea that would fit her family at the time. If it works for anybody else, that's just a plus for the Robinson family, because they can sell the curriculum. I think all the no-sugar-no-tv and stuff was just a plan they had for their kids from the get-go, as well as the kids having chores and running the family business and stuff like that, is just a plan they had for their family. And if it works as well for other people as it did/does for them, more power to you. But I personally would in no way force the kids to do everything themselves in a "lock them in a room" style until they graduate! I wonder what the Robinsons would have done if they had had a child with any sort of special need(s). Reading disability springs to mind. Dysgraphia, dyscalculia, Autism Spectrum, Down Syndrome, or any other kind of special need.
I agree! I find his method horrifying. Glad he's teaching kids to learn the basics, but where's the creativity in that? And only one day a week to play? Talk about brain-fry. I love online classes at the college. But they are very self-taught, with only e-mail contact with the instructor. It works for me (I tend to be a self-teacher anyway.. and have a hard time when people try to show me how to do something). Other people HATE it. What about my auditory learning dd? What about discussions, and the oddball questions they have? What part in this is 'fun' for kids, or make them look forward to school? How the heck do you avoid kid-burnout? Too many drawbacks, and not enough of the things that I like about homeschooling for me to ever consider this for my children.
I think it is helpful to see self-teaching as part of the curriculum. It is something we want our children to learn just like they learn math, reading, history, etc. My child's learning style is not important here. If you have a kinesthetic learner, are you not going to teach math? same principle applies here. Whatever their learning style, self-teaching is too important a skill to neglect. I think Robinson helps us see the importance of children learning to learn.
