Tag: homeschool

A Brief Update

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The last couple months have been pretty busy as I finished up my Gadfly of Serenity paper for the MPCA/ACA conference that took place in early October. The conference was really interesting and the presentation of my paper went well! The version here on my site is the full essay, I had to do some heavy editing to get it condensed for the 20 minutes of time allotted for me during the panel.  And in the absence of a proper blog post, I’ll just give a quick update as to what I’m doing now. I am currently developing an economics curriculum for…

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Let There Be Light!

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I’ve been experiencing a gambit of emotions during this chemistry class. From, “this is so challenging and fun!” to “I can’t believe I signed myself up for this??” to “okay, if I work really hard I can figure this out,” to finally this week something between wild elation and overwhelming trepidation. Haha, who know a chemistry could incite so many feelings? Anyways…the class this week is introducing the concept of quantum physics and the atomic nature of light! Has anyone wondered, “what exactly is light?” This has been a familiar topic of thought for me, although I think my favorite…

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Randomness

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When I resurrected my blog last month I had a mental resolution to post at least once a day. And that resolution has officially been broken, haha. But I keep reminding myself that it isn’t the end of the world if I don’t blog every single day. Although I just ran across an article warning of the coming end of the world on February 22nd, as predicted by Norse mythology. Sure, the Mayans got it wrong, but perhaps the Vikings are on to something! I’ll be honest and say I have no idea what this post is going to be…

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A Random Assortment of Pictures

I am a bit swamped with homework today, trying to finish everything today so I don’t start next week behind. So instead of an actual blog post, I thought I’d share some photos as a visual summary of my week : )      

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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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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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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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