toldailytopic: What is your chosen method for educating your children and why?

[Nathon Detroit]

I am going to let this topic run through the weekend. It had a late start yesterday and it's really interesting so I don't want to end it.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

It works! My children are highly energetic, unique and enthusiastic. I find that I can aid them to their greatest potential by customizing their curriculum to suit their individual needs, and challenge them all at the same time. A one-size fits all education that they would receive elsewhere isn't that attractive to me as a parent who wants the best for her children.

Wow! Great answer. :up:

 

[Persephone66]

Maybe so... but had I not been in public school I wouldn't have fallen into the wrong crowd.

That's kinda like saying "Had that drug dealer not been on the corner, I wouldn't have bought smack off him."

That's bit like blaming the student because he didn't listen in math class. While it may be true there is responsibility on both sides.

Actually it is the student's fault for not listening, but if the teacher or parent doesn't take any action to correct them, then yeah they do share in the blame.

That's an interesting and fair observation from you. :up:

One of the reasons I got into teaching is because I want there to be an improvement in public education. If I can make my classroom better, maybe I can encourage other teachers to do the same.

 

[Lighthouse]

I love how home vs. public school threads always degenerate into condemnation of either side by the other.

When it comes down to it, no one has any right to judge how someone else chooses to educate their children, and any condemnation merely shows the condemers' lack of common sense and inability to realize where their control stops.

Duhhhhh.
That's when they question (and have the ability to rebel against) everything they've ever been told.

Tis part of the natural process of BECOMING AN ADULT.

I say that having graduated from PUBLIC high school in 2004.

You're still a kid. Hopefully you'll grow a brain before your children are old enough for school. Because only someone who didn't have one would think rebelling against the truth would be something children should do.

Ignorant (I guess two other people who positive repped my post may have been ignorant too)?

Darn skippy!

So what is the difference between teaching your kids about sexual education yourself even though they go to public school vs home schooling them and teaching them? You can't teach them anymore about sexual education if you home school them vs if you didn't. What are you going to do, have 8hrs of sex ed per day?

:bang:

No matter how much you know about why you should wait peer pressure can be a powerful thing, because even though I made it out of high school a virgin as did a few of my friends, I am one of only two in my crowd who have never had intercourse outside of marriage and most of us grew up in conservative Christian homes. And even then I have felt the pressure to lose my virginity because of society's attitude toward sex and chastity, even so far as to cross some lines I should not have. Even in the church I attended when I was in high school there were several girls around my age getting pregnant out of wedlock. Home school is safer, by far.

What you mean to say is you wish to shelter them more, because if you aren't able to have the birds and the bee's talk with them even though they are in public schools, you're lacking as a parent.

I never said I would be unable to have the talk with them, but I admit I do want to shelter them from things they should not be exposed to. I was sexually harassed in high school and I don't want that to happen to my children.

It is a fact that sheltered kids have a tendency to act out because curiosity steaming from lack of exposure. There have been studies on that.

Curiosity doesn't come from a lack of exposure, it comes from a forbidding of the subject. I don't plan to do that to my children. I will explain to them what sex is, what it's for, the effects it has on people physically and emotionally, etc. and give them all the reasons they should wait until marriage.

Home schooling is fine, but don't fool yourself into thinking it will make them any less vulnerable to teenage hormones, unless your trying to play daddy dearest, and even then they'll likely end up acting out more.

The less pressure to have sex before marriage the stronger they will be in keeping said hormones in check.

Even then, I firmly believe in chaperoned dating until marriage.

What you are talking about is sheltering and if you think that is a solution, then you replace me as the most ignorant person on this forum. Public school has nothing to do with your kids getting knocked up, it has to do with you lacking as a role model.

You are truly an exceptionally idiotic person.

Explain how they will be less likely to get STD's or pregnant with you home schooling, besides you keeping them away from the opposite sex most of the day.

Home schooling is not the only tactic. Maybe you should try to use some critical thinking and figure out what else I can do to keep my kids safe without segregating them from the opposite sex. It can be done, numb skull.

I had friends that did drugs in school . . . I chose not to go with them to places where I knew drugs would be used. Peer pressure is an excuse for those that won't stand up for themselves.

I've never done drugs either. Of course I was never offered any in school, but I also never saw the point of drugs in the first place. I don't expect that I would have ever given into such peer pressure. But that's irrelevant. Not every child is willing to stand up for themselves. And drugs are the least of my worries in regard to peer pressure anyway. Our bodies are naturally wired to want to have sex, and even the slightest pressure to cross that line is more than I want my children to feel.

Oh I have. I did when I was in school. One transferred in at about grade 5. I have met several online. None of them have been remotely "normal".

Can you guess how many of them post here? Every single one I have ever met has been smarter than public school children their age, more mature and stronger in their resolve to do right.

And if what I saw most kids doing when I was in high school was normal I don't want my children to be normal.

The last one I knew was nearly impossible to deal with because of his sense of entitlement and overblown sense of his own intelligence . . .

Do I detect some jealousy? I'm more than certain he was smarter than you, and you didn't like that.

The schools aren't at fault so much as,parents and the kids themselves are. Do you not believe that human beings are inherently wicked? Schools cannot instill morality that's the job of the parents, regardless of where their education comes from. Too many parents today expect the schools to do the parenting for them, I don't.

I don;t expect schools to instill morality, but I have seen them instill immorality. Not just the staff, but the students as well. And the staff ignores it.

And it is because so many parents expect the schools to do the parenting for them that their children are not the kinds of children I want my children around.

And that's the school's job how? Is everyone going into "the business world"? No. The school's job is to give a basic education.

Actually, yes, everyone is going into the business world, with the exception of the extremely lazy and those who die too young. What do you think "business world" means?

One of the primary things I have heard in defense of public schools is that it prepares the kids for future employment. That's a lie.

The odds of any child being involved in gun violence at school is vanishingly small.

See Prisca's response to this.

Long division is the sort of thing you have to sit down and DO.

It's completely unnecessary.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

That's kinda like saying "Had that drug dealer not been on the corner, I wouldn't have bought smack off him."

And it would be silly to send your kid to that corner everyday for 8 hours.

 

[Poly]

We homeschool because my kids are capable of learning and understanding more if I am the one teaching them. We also do it so they will develop better social skills. Also, it was once said several years ago (I think by Knight) that homeschooling is good because of what they won't learn if they attended public schools.

But homeschooling has its downsides, too. Keeping your kids motivated and engaged can be overwhelming for moms who don't have a good support system. A homeschool co-op is a much better way to go.


We did this for awhile with Knight's family and it was great! Our best educational experience yet!

Absolutely! Having a good support system makes all the difference. Our homeschool group at church just had it's first meeting for the upcoming school year to go over the proposal for our first co-op. It went so well and everybody came to an agreement on the particular classes and how the rotating time schedule will work out. Twelve families will be participating in a full, one day a week of classes held at our church and taught by parents. We have 28 students in all from pre-K through 8th grade. One science/health class will be taught by a member of our church who teaches at a local college.

I'm so excited that I have the opportunity to teach an Apologia biology class for 6th-8th graders (4 kids total) and an A beka science class for 4th-6th graders (6 kids total). Bring on the frog dissecting. :banana:

We're so excited! I'm ready to start tomorrow.

 

[Maximeee]

When the time comes (Lili isn't even 2 yet) we will be homeschooling. We have multiple reasons.

We believe it is God's design for the family to be together and we believe He wants us to train our children ourselves. Jesus said no man is above his teacher (Matt 10:24). Why would I want my child to be like her teacher, instead of being like Godly people that we surround ourselves with?

Also, I don't believe that the same curriculum works for every child and we can adapt things to our children's needs. We will also have more freedom (take a day off, go on field trips whenever, go on vacation whenever etc) and we will get to pursue more (and different) extra curricular activities.

 

[Lighthouse]

When the time comes (Lili isn't even 2 yet) we will be homeschooling. We have multiple reasons.

We believe it is God's design for the family to be together and we believe He wants us to train our children ourselves. Jesus said no man is above his teacher (Matt 10:24). Why would I want my child to be like her teacher, instead of being like Godly people that we surround ourselves with?

Also, I don't believe that the same curriculum works for every child and we can adapt things to our children's needs. We will also have more freedom (take a day off, go on field trips whenever, go on vacation whenever etc) and we will get to pursue more (and different) extra curricular activities.

:BRAVO:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

When the time comes (Lili isn't even 2 yet) we will be homeschooling. We have multiple reasons.

We believe it is God's design for the family to be together and we believe He wants us to train our children ourselves. Jesus said no man is above his teacher (Matt 10:24). Why would I want my child to be like her teacher, instead of being like Godly people that we surround ourselves with?

Also, I don't believe that the same curriculum works for every child and we can adapt things to our children's needs. We will also have more freedom (take a day off, go on field trips whenever, go on vacation whenever etc) and we will get to pursue more (and different) extra curricular activities.

:first: POTD

 

[Poly]

We will also have more freedom (take a day off, go on field trips whenever, go on vacation whenever etc) and we will get to pursue more (and different) extra curricular activities.

I love it when we can go on field trips or activities to places on a weekday when we can always get right in and sometimes have the place to ourselves with no huge crowds as opposed to weekends when everything is so busy and crowded.

 

[Alate_One]

I've never done drugs either. Of course I was never offered any in school, but I also never saw the point of drugs in the first place. I don't expect that I would have ever given into such peer pressure. But that's irrelevant. Not every child is willing to stand up for themselves. And drugs are the least of my worries in regard to peer pressure anyway. Our bodies are naturally wired to want to have sex, and even the slightest pressure to cross that line is more than I want my children to feel.

The problem is the minute they are out from under your protection they'll have to deal with that peer pressure. And unless you intend them to get married right at 18 they're gonna have a long time to deal with it. The main point is to find a boyfriend/girlfriend that is similarly committed to remaining pure until marriage. Teach your children the skills in doing that and the "peer pressure" issue becomes a non-issue.

Can you guess how many of them post here? Every single one I have ever met has been smarter than public school children their age, more mature and stronger in their resolve to do right.

And if what I saw most kids doing when I was in high school was normal I don't want my children to be normal.

I'm not talking abnormal in a good way (as I was).

Do I detect some jealousy? I'm more than certain he was smarter than you, and you didn't like that.

:rotfl: He was nearly always wrong about the things he argued so forcefully. There are certainly people on that site that are smarter than me, and he wasn't one of them. I'm an instructor and I can't tell you how many times students tell me how smart they are and yet they can't pass the simplest tests . . . If you think people don't often have an inflated sense of their own intelligence, perhaps you suffer from this malady as well.

I don;t expect schools to instill morality, but I have seen them instill immorality. Not just the staff, but the students as well. And the staff ignores it.

Their job is to educate, not instill perfect morality.

And it is because so many parents expect the schools to do the parenting for them that their children are not the kinds of children I want my children around.

But they'll likely be around them as adults. It also serves as a negative example.If your children are raised properly they will recognize these types of people as the sort they don't want to be around. I did, my spouse did as did my parents.

Actually, yes, everyone is going into the business world, with the exception of the extremely lazy and those who die too young. What do you think "business world" means?

I'm in academia, I don't consider that "the business world" in the classical sense.

One of the primary things I have heard in defense of public schools is that it prepares the kids for future employment. That's a lie.

Unless you go to a school specifically designed for career education, they certainly don't prepare you for "a job". They are supposed to be preparing you for higher education. Which they don't always do a good job of either.

It's completely unnecessary.

You may not need to learn long division to survive in today's world but it does help children to learn patterns for when they later start to learn geometry and algebra.

I think the most important things about the public school are exposure to viewpoints, and other types of people my children would not meet ordinarily. I will be keeping a careful eye on what exactly the schools I use are doing. If I feel they are really bad I may move or choose a private option. But that's a good 5 years away . . . Lord willing.

 

[Lighthouse]

The problem is the minute they are out from under your protection they'll have to deal with that peer pressure. And unless you intend them to get married right at 18 they're gonna have a long time to deal with it. The main point is to find a boyfriend/girlfriend that is similarly committed to remaining pure until marriage. Teach your children the skills in doing that and the "peer pressure" issue becomes a non-issue.

Precisely.

:rotfl: He was nearly always wrong about the things he argued so forcefully. There are certainly people on that site that are smarter than me, and he wasn't one of them. I'm an instructor and I can't tell you how many times students tell me how smart they are and yet they can't pass the simplest tests . . . If you think people don't often have an inflated sense of their own intelligence, perhaps you suffer from this malady as well.

1. Einstein was horrid at math. People of higher intelligences usually do very poorly when it comes to school work the way it is usually structured because it's intended for those who are of an average intelligence.
2. You believe in evolution so you'll pardon if I don't trust you when you say he was wrong.

Their job is to educate, not instill perfect morality.

Miss the point much?

But they'll likely be around them as adults. It also serves as a negative example.If your children are raised properly they will recognize these types of people as the sort they don't want to be around. I did, my spouse did as did my parents.

Did I ever say otherwise?

I'm in academia, I don't consider that "the business world" in the classical sense.

It's a job, right?

Unless you go to a school specifically designed for career education, they certainly don't prepare you for "a job". They are supposed to be preparing you for higher education. Which they don't always do a good job of either.

:sherlock:

You may not need to learn long division to survive in today's world but it does help children to learn patterns for when they later start to learn geometry and algebra.

All math can be boiled down to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I learned, too late really, that all math is simple. Including algebra and geometry. Not to mention a lot of the time all it takes is common sense. Once you learn congruent angles are equal geometry that involves algebra should be a snap. I recall trying to help my step-sister with her algebra homework before I even took the class. She had to take it again, I only took it once. One of the problems in question when I tried to help her was asking to solve for a variable in what amounted to a rhombus. Three of the angles were labeled as to their degrees. She was to solve the fourth angle. I took one look at it and knew the answer. She couldn't figure out, even doing the actual math [which was so clearly unnecessary].

I think the most important things about the public school are exposure to viewpoints, and other types of people my children would not meet ordinarily. I will be keeping a careful eye on what exactly the schools I use are doing. If I feel they are really bad I may move or choose a private option. But that's a good 5 years away . . . Lord willing.

Their is no such thing as exposure to viewpoints in public schools.:nono:

 

[Non-Excluvistic]

No matter how much you know about why you should wait peer pressure can be a powerful thing, because even though I made it out of high school a virgin as did a few of my friends, I am one of only two in my crowd who have never had intercourse outside of marriage and most of us grew up in conservative Christian homes. And even then I have felt the pressure to lose my virginity because of society's attitude toward sex and chastity, even so far as to cross some lines I should not have. Even in the church I attended when I was in high school there were several girls around my age getting pregnant out of wedlock. Home school is safer, by far.

So it's personal choice. You are saying you weren't home schooled right?

What's to say that over friends houses for the weekend or at camps etc, your kids won't have the same influences and still end up having sex?

Again, how does home schooling them make then any less prone to sexual immorality besides you keeping them away from their peers most of the time?

I never said I would be unable to have the talk with them, but I admit I do want to shelter them from things they should not be exposed to. I was sexually harassed in high school and I don't want that to happen to my children.

Yes, of course you want to shelter them, that is apparent from the start. You could have saved yourself a lot of words. Sheltering them gives you no guarantee of a better outcome except for when you are watching them like a hawk, unless your trying to raise hermits.

Curiosity doesn't come from a lack of exposure, it comes from a forbidding of the subject. I don't plan to do that to my children. I will explain to them what sex is, what it's for, the effects it has on people physically and emotionally, etc. and give them all the reasons they should wait until marriage.

Oh yes, sheltered kids are just as prone to temptation from being curious or even more according to studies that have been done.

The less pressure to have sex before marriage the stronger they will be in keeping said hormones in check.

Peer pressure has nothing to do with those raging hormones, especially when it comes to guys. Peer pressure can make you feel the pressure to act upon it. If they did so, then maybe that is a result of bad parenting, because obviously, you never acted upon it.

One night at a friends house of a camp, could provide all the peer pressure needed to bring you an grandchild early. If you think your kids have follow the leader genes, then good luck with that.

Even then, I firmly believe in chaperoned dating until marriage.

I'm sure if you shelter them, they'll likely be hermits and they won't have many dates.

You are truly an exceptionally idiotic person.

Looking at your profile comments, I see that others think that you are a moron. We may be cousins then. :wave:

Home schooling is not the only tactic. Maybe you should try to use some critical thinking and figure out what else I can do to keep my kids safe without segregating them from the opposite sex. It can be done, numb skull.

I don't know what you can do for your insecurities as a parent or your lack of trust in your kids. Segregation won't help, because if they want to have sex, they'll just do it behind your back and you'll be clueless about it, until they end up pregnant or get someone pregnant--I certainly hope not



I didn't think you had any particular reason that homeschooling would help sexually tempted kids, besides the home schooling chastise belt. To bad it comes off when they leave. Maybe you should try trusting and instilling morals that will not come off just because you don't have them locked away sheltered from the world.

Home schooling is fine, but i likely won't help what you're fearing; that's all on them.

 

[GuySmiley]

It's completely unnecessary.

Lighthouse seriously . . . this is going to end up in someone's signature line.

 

[Alate_One]

Einstein was horrid at math. People of higher intelligences usually do very poorly when it comes to school work the way it is usually structured because it's intended for those who are of an average intelligence.

I don't think there's been a study done saying people of high intelligence USUALLY do badly in school. If you're smart you may do badly because you're simply bored out of your skull. Which happened to me in both christian and public schools. (I think it was worse in the Christian one) But the students that would come to me telling me how smart they were, would return later and tell me the tests were "too hard". I had other students that didn't take notes, barely studied and got 100% on them. I'm pretty sure they were the smart ones . . .

You believe in evolution so you'll pardon if I don't trust you when you say he was wrong.

uhh what does evolution have to do with anything? It certainly didn't have to do with what he was wrong about. he was just making nonsensical arguments.

It's a job, right?

Yep but its a nonprofit entity.

All math can be boiled down to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

:rotfl: As my department chair would say, those are arithmetic, not math.

I learned, too late really, that all math is simple.

Never took calculus eh?

Their is no such thing as exposure to viewpoints in public schools.:nono:

Sure there are. Not all teachers are the same. I certainly had a lot of different perspectives and teaching styles during my schooling (not to mention the students), what happened to you?

 

[The Berean]

Einstein was horrid at math. People of higher intelligences usually do very poorly when it comes to school work the way it is usually structured because it's intended for those who are of an average intelligence.

That really is not true. For some reason this idea that Albert Einstein was terrible at math has become an urban legend,. If Einstein was truly horrid in math he would not have gotten very far as a physicist. On a side note it's also not true that Einstein was a poor student as a teen. He finished what we would now call high school (secondary school) at age 17, received his bachelors' degree at age 21 and his Ph.D at age 26. This is from Einstein's own words.

At the age of 12-16 I familiarized myself with the elements of mathematics together with the principles of differential and integral calculus. In doing so I had the good fortune of hitting up books which were not too particular in their logical rigour, but which made up for his this by permitting the main thoughts to stand out clearly and synoptically. This occupation was, on the whole, truly fascinating; climaxes reached whose impression could easily compete with that of elementary geometry---the basic idea of analytic geometry, the infinite series, the concepts of differential and integral.

Does this sound like someone who was "horrid" in math?

Einstein did not care for the rigorous method of teaching that he was under in the German gymnasium. He left that school because his family had moved to Milan, Italy when he was 15. But he left without a diploma. At age 16 he attempted to get accepted into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Since he didn't have a diploma he had to take an entrance exam which he failed. Einstein admitted that he had gaps in his education of self-study.

Asa sixteen-year-old I came to Zurich from Italy in 1895. adter I spent one year without school and teachers in Milan with my parents. My aim was to gain admission to the Polytechnic, but it was not clear to me how I should attain this. I was a self-willed but modest young man, who had obtained his fragmentary knowledge of the relevant fundamentals mainly through self study. Avid a deeper understanding, but not very gifted in being receptive, studies did not appear to me to be an easy task. I appeared for the entrance examination of the engineering department with a deep-seated feeling of insecurity. Even though the examiners were patient and understanding, the examination painfully revealed to me the gaps in my earlier training. I thought it only right that I failed.

Source page 4-5

Einstein was recommended that he attend another finishing school to complete his education before entering the university. This school was completely different that what he experienced in Germany.

The director, Professor Albin Herzog, however, recommend me to the Cantonal School in Aatau, from where after one year's study I was graduated. On account of its liberal spirit and genuine sincerity, and teachers who did not lean on external authority of any kind, this school has left on me an unforgettable impression. Compared to six years of schooling in an authoritatively run German gymnasium I became intensely aware of how much education leading to independent activity and individual responsibility is to be preferred to an education that relies on drill, external authority, and ambition.

It sounds like Einstein enjoyed this "public school".

All math can be boiled down to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I learned, too late really, that all math is simple. Including algebra and geometry.

Those are the basic building blocks of algebra but hardly all there is to all math. Calculus, differential equations, matrix algebra, method of proofs, etc. all pushing mathematical knowledge well beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division .

 

[Lighthouse]

You are saying you weren't home schooled right?

That is what i am saying, yes.

What's to say that over friends houses for the weekend or at camps etc, your kids won't have the same influences and still end up having sex?

:doh:

Do you really think I'm going to allow my kids to be in a situation where that could happen?

Again, how does home schooling them make then any less prone to sexual immorality besides you keeping them away from their peers most of the time?

It's not about keeping them away from peers. I don't plan to keep them away from peers. I plan to keep them away from degenerates by not putting them in public school.:dunce::duh:

Yes, of course you want to shelter them, that is apparent from the start. You could have saved yourself a lot of words. Sheltering them gives you no guarantee of a better outcome except for when you are watching them like a hawk, unless your trying to raise hermits.

Oh yes, sheltered kids are just as prone to temptation from being curious or even more according to studies that have been done.

And why should they be curious if I am open and honest with them?

Peer pressure has nothing to do with those raging hormones, especially when it comes to guys. Peer pressure can make you feel the pressure to act upon it. If they did so, then maybe that is a result of bad parenting, because obviously, you never acted upon it.

You're agreeing with me. This is exactly what I was saying, except that I have acted upon it.

One night at a friends house of a camp, could provide all the peer pressure needed to bring you an grandchild early. If you think your kids have follow the leader genes, then good luck with that.

I've already addressed this point.

I'm sure if you shelter them, they'll likely be hermits and they won't have many dates.

I'm not putting them in a shelter.:doh:

And I also don't plan on letting them date according to today's societal standards.

Looking at your profile comments, I see that others think that you are a moron. We may be cousins then. :wave:

They can think whatever they want. Doesn't make them right.

I don't know what you can do for your insecurities as a parent or your lack of trust in your kids. Segregation won't help, because if they want to have sex, they'll just do it behind your back and you'll be clueless about it, until they end up pregnant or get someone pregnant--I certainly hope not

It's not my kids I will mistrust.

I didn't think you had any particular reason that homeschooling would help sexually tempted kids, besides the home schooling chastise belt. To bad it comes off when they leave. Maybe you should try trusting and instilling morals that will not come off just because you don't have them locked away sheltered from the world.

That is exactly what I plan on doing. Have you not been paying attention?

Home schooling is fine, but i likely won't help what you're fearing; that's all on them.

I'm not afraid of it.

Lighthouse seriously . . . this is going to end up in someone's signature line.

So? Long division is unnecessary. If you know your multiplication you can do the division in your head. And there are all manner of programs out there that teach kids to do all manner of mathematics in their head which proves me right.

I don't think there's been a study done saying people of high intelligence USUALLY do badly in school. If you're smart you may do badly because you're simply bored out of your skull.

That's what I'm saying. I never said anything about a study either.

Which happened to me in both christian and public schools. (I think it was worse in the Christian one) But the students that would come to me telling me how smart they were, would return later and tell me the tests were "too hard". I had other students that didn't take notes, barely studied and got 100% on them. I'm pretty sure they were the smart ones . . .

That latter one sounds like me. But I never did the homework, only the work in class. I always got 100% on those, but I maintained a C because I never did any other work in many classes.

uhh what does evolution have to do with anything? It certainly didn't have to do with what he was wrong about. he was just making nonsensical arguments.

Did you see that plane?

:rotfl: As my department chair would say, those are arithmetic, not math.

Never took calculus eh?

No. Why?

Sure there are. Not all teachers are the same. I certainly had a lot of different perspectives and teaching styles during my schooling (not to mention the students), what happened to you?

They are run by the government and are only allowed to teach the government viewpoint.

That really is not true. For some reason this idea that Albert Einstein was terrible at math has become an urban legend,. If Einstein was truly horrid in math he would not have gotten very far as a physicist. On a side note it's also not true that Einstein was a poor student as a teen. He finished what we would now call high school (secondary school) at age 17, received his bachelors' degree at age 21 and his Ph.D at age 26. This is from Einstein's own words.


Does this sound like someone who was "horrid" in math?

Einstein did not care for the rigorous method of teaching that he was under in the German gymnasium. He left that school because his family had moved to Milan, Italy when he was 15. But he left without a diploma. At age 16 he attempted to get accepted into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Since he didn't have a diploma he had to take an entrance exam which he failed. Einstein admitted that he had gaps in his education of self-study.

Source page 4-5

Einstein was recommended that he attend another finishing school to complete his education before entering the university. This school was completely different that what he experienced in Germany.

Okay, so I was wrong about Einstein. And I didn't actually mean he was no good at math, he clearly was since he was a physicist. I merely thought he did poorly but not because he didn't get it.

Those are the basic building blocks of algebra but hardly all there is to all math. Calculus, differential equations, matrix algebra, method of proofs, etc. all pushing mathematical knowledge well beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division .

Keep telling yourself that...

 

[GeneCosta]

Intent: public school mixed with a healthy dose of education at home. Our public schools (with one or two exceptions - we're one of the largest in the nation) outperform the local private schools in terms of test scores, class selection, and quality of teachers.

 

[GeneCosta]

That really is not true. For some reason this idea that Albert Einstein was terrible at math has become an urban legend,. If Einstein was truly horrid in math he would not have gotten very far as a physicist. On a side note it's also not true that Einstein was a poor student as a teen. He finished what we would now call high school (secondary school) at age 17, received his bachelors' degree at age 21 and his Ph.D at age 26. This is from Einstein's own words.


Does this sound like someone who was "horrid" in math?

Einstein did not care for the rigorous method of teaching that he was under in the German gymnasium. He left that school because his family had moved to Milan, Italy when he was 15. But he left without a diploma. At age 16 he attempted to get accepted into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Since he didn't have a diploma he had to take an entrance exam which he failed. Einstein admitted that he had gaps in his education of self-study.



Source page 4-5

Einstein was recommended that he attend another finishing school to complete his education before entering the university. This school was completely different that what he experienced in Germany.


It sounds like Einstein enjoyed this "public school".



Those are the basic building blocks of algebra but hardly all there is to all math. Calculus, differential equations, matrix algebra, method of proofs, etc. all pushing mathematical knowledge well beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division .

Heh, speaking as a physics major, physicists tend to be really lazy when it comes to processing their math. And proofs annoy me to no end.

Trig and differentiable calculus are fun. Topology looks interesting, but I'm pretty much ignorant as to its applications. Integration makes me suicidal.

 

[Persephone66]

And it would be silly to send your kid to that corner everyday for 8 hours.

OK, that was a bad analogy on my part and certainly not the point I was trying to make.

But I can't really argue either.