The words open and closed, are descriptive of the way students often see themselves and approach difficulties.  Closed: “I’m not good at math.”  “I’ll never understand this!” “I’ll never improve.”  Open: “OK, I’ll try this.” “I’ll ask questions if I don’t understand.” “I’m determined to get it even if it takes many ‘do-overs’.”   What’s behind both kinds of thinking…

“. . . The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization,…

Do some easy things first!   When I was home schooling, I found that doing some short, easy things first at the beginning of the day provided a warm-up of sorts. If the subject was math, we had a “question or story problem of the day.” We often followed this with “mental math” drills.  If we began with English, we…

Thinking about not home schooling this year? Understandable, given the year we’ve been through- the emotional, physical, and financial stress that have landed on us.  Add to this the constant messaging and daily browbeating being dished out by many political office holders and media personalities in an attempt to influence our behavior. Whatever side of the vax…

Earlier this week, I shared a meme I thought was funny: “All these kids been learning Common Core math, ’bout to learn how to “Carry the One” from their new homeschool teachers…” I suggested in my post that we tend to teach how we were taught. We ourselves weren’t taught with Common Core methodology.  The meme illustrates something…

Years ago an investigative reporter presented a story in which some public school teachers had been caught “adjusting” the answers on some of their students’ achievement tests.  In this particular school, bonuses were linked to high classroom scores on end-of-the-year achievement tests.   The temptation to tweak the weaker students’ answer sheets to increase the overall class average…