I'm friends with an incredibly smart kid. He's 14, but has been put up three grades in school at one point. He does all the obvious enrichment things which are available in the relatively small Australian city he lives in.
His life experience has been pretty unusual. He doesn't really know what it's like to be challenged in school. All his friends are way older than he is. (Once, I asked him how being constantly around people older than him made him feel. He replied, "Concerned for my future.")
He doesn't know anyone like him, which I think is a shame: he'd probably get along very well with them.
Does anyone know any similar kid geniuses? If so, can I give them my friend's details?
What learning resources will you use?
I suppose that you want your children to have knowledge at least comparable with a decent high-school student. And then, as adults they can decide whether they want to study at university, but they should be ready if they choose so. (This is what I would want for my children.) I have no experience with unschooling, because it's illegal in my country, so maybe I'm missing something obvious, but here is what I imagine:
For simple things, like grades 1-4 of elementary school, teaching your children should be trivial, except that it takes a lot of time, and depending on their temper, perhaps a lot of patience. Probably not possible if both parents work full-time, but should be possible if one of them stays at home or works half-time.
For the rest of elementary school, and for high school, teaching your children is possible and not very dificult, but also not trivial. You would need some preparation; maybe there is a subject that you didn't understand well at high school; maybe your children will want to learn a foreign language you don't speak or something else outside of your competence (for many parents, computer science would be a good example). Good part is, your children can already read, so you just have to give them good materials and make sure they use it.
Still there is a problem of choosing the right studying materials. (In my opinion, this is a very important task of school system. Teaching per se is often done badly, some students would be better with a book and/or internet. Problem is, there is a lot of nonsense published, and as a total beginner you have problems to separate good resources from bad resources. Selecting the good resources and providing you with a top-level view is an important thing school does. Another good thing is contacting you with people who study the same thing at the same time.) How do you want to solve this part, especially in subjects which are not an area of expertise of neither you nor y
I'm friends with an incredibly smart kid. He's 14, but has been put up three grades in school at one point. He does all the obvious enrichment things which are available in the relatively small Australian city he lives in.
His life experience has been pretty unusual. He doesn't really know what it's like to be challenged in school. All his friends are way older than he is. (Once, I asked him how being constantly around people older than him made him feel. He replied, "Concerned for my future.")
He doesn't know anyone like him, which I think is a shame: he'd probably get along very well with them.
Does anyone know any similar kid geniuses? If so, can I give them my friend's details?
Thanks.