Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program. (Quatro)

It took some doing to get old Grizzly Mama back up off the floor after that brush with ugly reality - let me tell ya. We did it though and here I am - and feeling more resolute as a result. I am ready to continue with Cubed's excellent series on education. I apologize for so rudely interrupting - you can see that it was a must though!

Education and Jihad - Part IV.

Another fascinating read chock full of information that we as parents need. Cubed starts with explaining the periods during brain developement when intellectual tasks are learned almost effortlessly. These “biological windows” or “sensitive periods” occur at genetically pre-programmed times. This brain development starts at birth and continues until the early twenties.

From the article:

"Each neuro-developmental task, or intellectual skill, has its own timetable. Every child, no matter where in the world he was born, or into what ethnic, cultural, or racial group, learns the same intellectual tasks in the same sequence, at about the same age."

We need to know this information so that we as parents can make use of these exceedingly important 'windows'. A few examples of biological windows:

The “window” for the introduction of a second language opens at about six months (this is not a typo). It peaks at about four years, and then fades steadily until puberty.

The “music window” opens at about three, and fades steadily until puberty.

The “math window” opens at around a year, peaks almost immediately, and fades at around four years.

The “art window” opens at about two and a half and fades by about ten or twelve.

The “physical window” exists from birth, peaks shortly before puberty, and fades steadily until young adulthood, around the mid-twenties.

Cubed describes the importance of music and art, and the way those disciplines help the brain make connections. Steve of 'Madam' has noted in the past that learning a musical instrument is a beneficial pursuit. Cubed notes (and I've heard it before) that "Art is such an important part of our lives that it is often tightly controlled in totalitarian societies to be sure that the “wrong ideas” won’t sneak into people’s minds."

We are then whisked off to take a look at the fact that kids who are taught or tutored one-on-one just do fantastically well. Cubed gives a brief history of some interesting tutorial approaches and what happened to them. Homeschoolers know from experience how great it is to have that one-on-one time. We also know how great it is to have different age children interacting with each other - helping and being helped. One of the tricks I use is to pretend that I am confused about a particular concept and ask my oldest to explain it to me. Afterward I wink at her - she knows what I'm up to by NOW. Oh well - there is still the 5 y/old to use that old trick on. Cubed notes that 'students as tutors' has had a positive effect not only on the 'tutees' but also on the tutors themselves.

You have GOT to go read about the DISTAR system. I had never heard of it before reading cubeds article. It seems the teachers unions don't like DISTAR. I wonder why?! ;-)

Cubed ends her article with this:

"We are getting ever closer to explaining how it is that Islam rapes the minds of its children and creates world-wide conflict."


I will only do one of the articles today. Thank you again Cubed and as always if I missed anything please let me know. Well - - - you really HAVE to read her article because there is SO much there that can't be easily summed up.

God bless America and Homeschool Your Children!!