Q & A #5 - Curriculum

We used various resources for learning. Collectively, our children attained academic knowledge from text books and workbooks, apps and online learning programs like Duolingo, Rosetta Stone and Khan Academy, online courses from free 4 hour short courses through to Certificate IV level qualifications, reading, documentaries, You Tube, tutors and mentors, classes – and probably a dozen other means of which I’m not aware! Their learning programs were extremely flexible and by the time they were teens they were almost entirely self-designed and self-driven. Some of their favourite ways to learn, especially in earlier years, included Unit Studies or Projects, co-operative learning (where we’d do the same Unit Studies as other families, and come together to share regularly), and classes like art, pottery, Italian, and co-op group lessons on science and math topics.

It’s good to remember that you’re always free to change things. If a book or course isn’t working out, switch to something else! Occasionally, if I’d invested a lot of money in something, I’d encourage the kids to keep going up to a certain point (end of term, until I sourced a new book, or whatever), and then they switched. Continuity and standardised curriculums aren’t all that important, to us. I always figured that all the kids sitting bored in classrooms, not absorbing knowledge because they weren’t ready or interested, would easy have more gaps in their learning than my kids who could work through their preferred resources at their own pace.