Two previous Homeschool Wednesdays covered the relationship between math and beauty as a different way of motivating the study of math. My first presentation was on spirals and the second one on waves. In each case the main point I am trying to make for our kids is how relatively simple mathematical formulas can generate magnificent patterns found in nature. Another area where this is true are fractals. These self similar patterns often have surprisingly simple underlying algorithms: http://w...

Two previous Homeschool Wednesdays covered the relationship between math and beauty as a different way of motivating the study of math. My first presentation was on spirals and the second one on waves. In each case the main point I am trying to make for our kids is how relatively simple mathematical formulas can generate magnificent patterns found in nature. Another area where this is true are fractals. These self similar patterns often have surprisingly simple underlying algorithms: http://w...

It is definitely Homeschool Wednesday in our household, as Susan has a blog post out about raising active decision makers. My post today will be about math. There are a great many problems with how math is taught in schools but the one I want to focus on is motivation. Generally math is presented as something you just have to know, i.e. as a requirement for other things. In the lowest form that’s a requirement for passing the upcoming test or eventually the SAT to get into college. This is es...

It is definitely Homeschool Wednesday in our household, as Susan has a blog post out about raising active decision makers. My post today will be about math. There are a great many problems with how math is taught in schools but the one I want to focus on is motivation. Generally math is presented as something you just have to know, i.e. as a requirement for other things. In the lowest form that’s a requirement for passing the upcoming test or eventually the SAT to get into college. This is es...

In a previous edition of Homeschool Wednesdays, I had written about different ways of motivating the study of math. In particular I suggested that showing how math can be beautiful may be one way to get some kids interested in it. My first foray into that was showing how spirals occur in nature and can easily be modeled using math. In my presentation this past Sunday I talked about waves. Here it is: Math & Beauty 2: Waves from Albert Wenger When I presented it, the embed on Slide 10 actually...

In a previous edition of Homeschool Wednesdays, I had written about different ways of motivating the study of math. In particular I suggested that showing how math can be beautiful may be one way to get some kids interested in it. My first foray into that was showing how spirals occur in nature and can easily be modeled using math. In my presentation this past Sunday I talked about waves. Here it is: Math & Beauty 2: Waves from Albert Wenger When I presented it, the embed on Slide 10 actually...

Growing up in Germany I was always bored in math class, despite going to “Gymnasium” (the branch of Germany’s multi-tiered system that leads up to university) and even taking the most advanced math class in our school (the so-called “Leistungskurs Mathematik”). The math we were doing included some multi-variate calculus and some probability but I never felt really challenged nor was there a clear opportunity to take something more advanced. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that one could do the s...

Growing up in Germany I was always bored in math class, despite going to “Gymnasium” (the branch of Germany’s multi-tiered system that leads up to university) and even taking the most advanced math class in our school (the so-called “Leistungskurs Mathematik”). The math we were doing included some multi-variate calculus and some probability but I never felt really challenged nor was there a clear opportunity to take something more advanced. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that one could do the s...

States have different regulations for homeschooling. New York State requires the filing of an IHIP or Individualized Home Instruction Plan. Here are the governing regulation and the official FAQ about IHIPs. We are currently working on the IHIPs for our kids for this coming year. Thankfully one can find lots of examples on that wonderful resource that is the Internet. One of the things that’s fascinating to me here is how I have never seen anything like this for our children while they were i...

States have different regulations for homeschooling. New York State requires the filing of an IHIP or Individualized Home Instruction Plan. Here are the governing regulation and the official FAQ about IHIPs. We are currently working on the IHIPs for our kids for this coming year. Thankfully one can find lots of examples on that wonderful resource that is the Internet. One of the things that’s fascinating to me here is how I have never seen anything like this for our children while they were i...

Today I will be participating in a discussion at NYU on the future of higher education. The panel that I will be on has been given the following questions: “Do universities provide good value for money today? What are the gaps in the higher ed ecosystem, and who will fill them?” As it turns out these are the wrong questions to ask and I am planning to explain that in my introductory remarks. Universities got going almost a thousand years ago with the founding of the University of Bologna in 1...

Today I will be participating in a discussion at NYU on the future of higher education. The panel that I will be on has been given the following questions: “Do universities provide good value for money today? What are the gaps in the higher ed ecosystem, and who will fill them?” As it turns out these are the wrong questions to ask and I am planning to explain that in my introductory remarks. Universities got going almost a thousand years ago with the founding of the University of Bologna in 1...

Last week in Homeschool Wednesdays I wrote about the New York State requirement for an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP). One of the sections that I have been thinking a fair bit about is science. So I have started to put together a Hackpad with what I think everyone should know in science. I literally mean everyone here. I have a strong believe that the world would be a better place if more people knew more about science. If you want to contribute head over to the Hackpad. It is cu...

Last week in Homeschool Wednesdays I wrote about the New York State requirement for an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP). One of the sections that I have been thinking a fair bit about is science. So I have started to put together a Hackpad with what I think everyone should know in science. I literally mean everyone here. I have a strong believe that the world would be a better place if more people knew more about science. If you want to contribute head over to the Hackpad. It is cu...

One of the skills we want all of our kids to learn is how to present. This seems like one of those universally useful things: being able to get up in front of an audience and get them to listen to you. Doing this with or without the help of images. Answering questions from the audience. Pretty much anything you might do, even say create art, is likely to require this at some point (eg the opening of your art show). So every weekend we are now having presentations. We have created a nice setup...

One of the skills we want all of our kids to learn is how to present. This seems like one of those universally useful things: being able to get up in front of an audience and get them to listen to you. Doing this with or without the help of images. Answering questions from the audience. Pretty much anything you might do, even say create art, is likely to require this at some point (eg the opening of your art show). So every weekend we are now having presentations. We have created a nice setup...

Earlier this year someone suggested that I read “How Children Succeed” by the aptly named Paul Tough. It is an excellent book that deals with the question of how to help influence the character of children and how in turn that character contributes to their success as students and in life. This had already been on our mind and one of the things we were struggling with was how to measure character so as to give our children some kind of baseline and see how that changes over the year. So we we...

Earlier this year someone suggested that I read “How Children Succeed” by the aptly named Paul Tough. It is an excellent book that deals with the question of how to help influence the character of children and how in turn that character contributes to their success as students and in life. This had already been on our mind and one of the things we were struggling with was how to measure character so as to give our children some kind of baseline and see how that changes over the year. So we we...

One of the advantages of homeschooling is that it is easy to change the schedule to accommodate special events. On Monday morning we did just that. Jack Hidary, whose campaign for mayor of New York we have been supporting, was organizing a visit to the 9/11 memorial. None of us had been and so we all went. The evening before we talked with the kids – who were 1.5, 1.5 and -0.6 at the time – about 9/11. They clearly had picked up a lot from past conversations as they were well with the basic o...

One of the advantages of homeschooling is that it is easy to change the schedule to accommodate special events. On Monday morning we did just that. Jack Hidary, whose campaign for mayor of New York we have been supporting, was organizing a visit to the 9/11 memorial. None of us had been and so we all went. The evening before we talked with the kids – who were 1.5, 1.5 and -0.6 at the time – about 9/11. They clearly had picked up a lot from past conversations as they were well with the basic o...