Category: Education

The Benefits of Self-Education

I’m resurrecting this post fro 2012 because 1) my chemistry homework absorbed all my possible blogging time today, 2) it is an interesting post and I thought might be helpful for those who didn’t see it the first time around. : ) I’m always having conversations with people that go something like this, “so are you in school?” and I struggle to explain my whole life because there isn’t a nice, simple answer. I’m tempted to reply with, “I’m not a college student, I’m actually an autodidact.” But my own sense of social interaction prevents me from actually carrying this…

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Giving In

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I aced the first two weeks of chemistry by doing math my own eccentric way. But it is week 3 and I’ve resigned myself to dimensional analysis. Bad news: the equations no longer make any sense. Good news: I can actually solve the equations correctly.

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What I Learned Last Week

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It’s a bit awkward when you sit down to write a blog post about everything you learned last week and your mind goes completely blank. I know that I didn’t do much besides studying, but I don’t remember a thing, haha. At that point I pull out my trusty binder and refer to the prodigious notes created last week. And now I remember one thing: I got a 100% on my chemistry exam! That literally stunned me. I am not strong in science or math, so I’ve thought it impossible for me to do well in a subject like chemistry….

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Creation vs. Evolution Debate: Tonight!

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For those who haven’t heard, Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis will be debating Bill Nye the Science Guy tonight. You can read more here. Note: When I give a name and colon afterwards, I’m loosely quoting the general statements of the presenters. If it is an exact quote, I’ll put it in quotation marks. My own side comments are either addressed to a specific presenter or put in parenthesis. [liveblog]    If all goes according to plan, I will attempt live-blogging the debate, so check this post tonight for updates. I am bit disappointed the whole event will last only 2.5…

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What is Classical Education?

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This morning I braved the snowy roads (the city apparently decided to not bother plowing even the major roads) to hear Matt Bianco, the national director of education for Classical Conversations speak on what classical education means. It was very informative, as well as entertaining, and I wanted to share what I learned… To make decisions about education, we have to know what our goal is. This really goes for anything in life. And as an aside, this fits perfectly with the human action axiom. We act to achieve ends, and it makes sense that we ought to consider what…

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Link Love

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This is an interesting article arguing that it isn’t necessary to formally teach math. Who invented writing? This charming video from TED Ed describes the development of writing. This looks like a neat writing curriculum, Brave writing. What does it mean to remember? I haven’t watched this TED video yet, but it looks really fascinating. I enjoyed reading about a Day in the Life of a Waldorf Kindergarten. Some thought-provoking ideas about reading from Albert Mohler. I haven’t completely watched this video either (for some reason I have a really hard time watching videos) , but the subject, why MOOCs still matter,…

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What I Learned

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I won’t guarantee this will happen every week, but on a somewhat regular basis I intend to share some of the things that I’ve recently learned in my studies. I watched the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet and read the original play. It really helped to watch and read concurrently. I’d watch an hour of the play, then read up to that scene in the play, and so forth. David Tennant’s performance as Hamlet really helped me understand his character, I think he did a fantastic job. Some of the mad and just quirky things he does in the…

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A Brief Explanation of the Scientific Method

This week my sister and I started taking an Intro to Chemistry MOOC from Duke University. We’re a little daunted by the math requirements, but I’m so far determined to figure it out! In one of the first lectures of the week we reviewed the scientific method. I won’t go through it in detail, but I’ll share what I learned about some of the terms used in science. Most everything in science starts with observations. From here you develop a hypothesis to explain what you’ve seen. At this point the hypothesis is just an educated guess, you still must conduct experiments…

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More Classical Conversations Lesson Ideas

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Part One: New Grammar Lesson Ideas  Science Experiments Science really varies for me, mostly based on if it is about something I’m familiar with. A lot of what we did last semester was fairly new to me, and I wasn’t able to devote a lot of extra time to research ahead of time. But I have been trying to utilize my resources, such as Khan Academy, and get a really solid understanding of the concepts ahead of time. This week was fantastic because I was able to explain water molecules, hydrogen bonds, and such. If I have a good grasp…

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