Secular/Rational Homeschooling

[LarianLeQuella]

My wife is considering some homeschooling for our daughter, not because of the overtly religious nature of this area, but rather because my daughter suffers from a great deal of social anxiety and other mental disabilities that makes the social interaction of school more detrimental than the education. Right now we do have access to some good course material here in New England. Particularly a lot of things through MIT, Harvard, and other places here in New England. However, she is also looking for the base course material, and was hoping for some recommendations.

So, how would a rational/secular crowd rate The Great Courses? Any other homeschool resources for secular/rational parents? This is for someone entering sophomore year in US High School.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

My wife is...looking for the base course material, and was hoping for some recommendations...how would a rational/secular crowd rate The Great Courses? Any other homeschool resources for secular/rational parents? This is for someone entering sophomore year in US High School.

Khan Academy. Dover paperbacks in Math, Science, and History. Any literature and hobby/craft materials that appeal to her interests.

Albert Einstein
"Force and Fear Have No Place in Education"

To me the worst thing seems to be for a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and self-confidence of the pupil. It produces the submissive subject. . . It is comparatively simple to keep the school free from this worst of all evils. Give into the power of the teacher the fewest possible coercive measures, so that the only source of the pupil's respect for the teacher is the human and intellectual qualities of the latter.

Albert Einstein
"Autobiographical Notes"
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, Paul Schilpp, ed. (1951), pp. 17-19

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.

 

[GeneMachine]

The Great Courses have good material, but are lacking in the whole field of physics, chemistry, biology - not much introductory material there. Very good stuff when it comes to history, though. The niveau might be a bit high for school purposes, and the prices are... not low.

 

[fuelair]

The Great Courses have good material, but are lacking in the whole field of physics, chemistry, biology - not much introductory material there. Very good stuff when it comes to history, though. The niveau might be a bit high for school purposes, and the prices are... not low.

Actually, to me anyway, TGC are nicely reasonably priced as they are functionally always on sale (if one isn't this week it will be next or a month from now and you can cover small amounts (not how I do it, but...) and turn off the teacher until you are ready for another on. I even got a couple free on Economics that someone uploaded to an inappropriate site (which, weirdly carries a modicum of regular movies in their overseas editions - I downloaded a couple just for the giggles of telling persons that "I downloaded this from a porn site - it's really wild! and having them shocked when "National Treasure" or similar pops up....). Anyway, I like 'em!!

 

[GeneMachine]

Never said they were bad or something - I like them too. And you are right, with the amount of sales they are running, you can really get a sizeable connection for cheap.

However, I still doubt that most of them are good material for homeschooling. A lot of them seem too advanced for that purpose.