OH, lookout! The SAT is changing!

So the SAT is changing. Changes include returning to the old 1600 scale, making the essay optional, losing the penalty for wrong answers, changing up the English section to be more knowledge based than IQ based, and taking away the calculator for certain sections.  So, it may be time to toss out all those old SAT study guides, because they are probably rendered useless.

 My kids are through this phase of life so there is a bit of relief there. However, I don't really see the changes as bad. Schools stopped paying attention to the essay years ago and have effectively graded kids on a 1600 scale. My kids found that the calculator actually slowed them down during the more basic math portions so that's a good move too. Plus they are now grading more like the ACT With no penalties for wrong answers.

My only concern is for kids who's graduation date will cause them to take the test both before and after the change. The disparity in grades may be frustrating to them, or it could be a boon. Who knows. But how will the colleges process this info? Will they even be able to make sense of a superscore? These are my questions.

So, if my kid were graduating in 2017, I might do the ACT just for score consistency. Or I would at least make sure they were done with the SAT before the changes, or waited until after the change.

Lies about common core.

This image came up on my Facebook feed. Just the image, not the caption above it. I was incredulous. Why would you take such a simple numerical problem and complicate to to such and extreme. I felt it was stupid and said so.

(By the way, I do get it, it is a counting up method in where you take the smaller number, 12, and add 3 to get to 15, a number where skip counting can be easier, then you add 5 to 15, to get 20, then you add 10 to 20 to get 30, and then you add 2 more to get 32.  Then you simply add all the numbers you added by.  3+5+10+2=20.  It is more of a math puzzle than a math problem, and should not be used to teach math in my opinion.)

So later on today, after a few friends had commented on my status update, I looked at it on my iPad and noticed that it was formatted in a way that the caption, "This is Common Core" above it and a picture of the Lovely Victorian Jackson above it. (Big fan of her comedy, especially from her younger days, not a fan of her poltiticing). 

What upset me this time, is that this "new math" is being presented as common core, when it has nothing to do with

The 427th Homeschool Carnival "Just Keep blogging" edition.

It is now March 2014, I officially became a veteran homeschooler back in May 2013, when I

graduated my second, and last child, from homeschooling. I am still processing all of my thoughts and feelings about the last 10 years, because homeschooling is serious business, and just as you need to be mentally prepared to start and to make it through homeschooling, you need to put the same effort (at least in my case) into coming out the other side, and finding a new you, when you have been released from your homeschooling duties. 

Just as I found blogging to be a great way to prepare myself and to keep motivated during the homeschool process, I am finding blogging to be a great way to process myself into my next phase in life-post homeschooling.  As much as inward blogging has helped me, I still need to spend just as much time reading the blogs of others, for sanity reasons, to let me know that I am OK... as in Not Crazy, as in other people are having the same feelings and experiences that I have either had, or am having right now. For this I am thankful, so with that I say, Just keep blogging through and even after homeschooling.  I will keep you sane, and it will also help those who come after you.  

Leading a dead horse

For the past few months, I've been trapped somewhere in between leading a horse to water and beating a dead horse.  However, the horse has been neither thirsty, or willing to try something new. I often tell my kids that the meaning of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results.  It is of course, not a true definition, but a symptom of insanity in which I have chosen to no longer participate.

It makes me sad that a young, extended family member, with so much promise is dooming himself to not be his best, and to not do his best, but I have to take the onus off of myself, and place it where  it belongs.  Once you have offered opportunity, and resources, and nothing has changed... for months, and months on end, you just have to move on...

And so I am back to working on me, and I am good with that.

Almost done with the real estate course... And need to double up my gym time too, but I was giving that time to someone who did not appreciate it it.

Moving on.

There is a homeschool correlation to this real life story.   I have seen many parents decide they were going to homeschool to fix problems their kids were having in school, such as a bad attitude, or lack of effort. Unfortunately, changing the setting, it not going to make a big change if you don't change the heart... shore up the foundation.  These are often the kids that wind up back in school having made no progress, allowing schools systems and teachers to announce, that homeschooling is a dismal failure.

If your kid is acting up in school, don't expect homeschooling to change that, unless you are going to change the root problem, and maybe even yourself.  In this case, it was just too late, and someone who was already "grown", and who I had no real authority over, wasn't willing to accept what I had to offer.