The kids studied all weekend long for their big Calculus test this morning. Friday and Sunday afternoon and evening they studied at home. Saturday they spent at the NCSU Main Library. I worked on GaugeCam most of the time they studied. It was good to have a reminder of the difficulty of learning hard material. Preparation for history, writing, and literature tests is fundamentally different from preparation for math, chemistry, and physics. Biology is somewhere in between. I was particularly proud of the intensity and amount of work they did this weekend. We do not know how the tests will come out. They worked hard to prepare and they understand the material, but who knows what quirky problem or brain freeze might happen during the test. I always tell the kids that the point of education is not to get a grade, but to understand the material. The grade is a way for teachers and students to know whether the information transfer took place and its works as feed back loop between the teacher and the students is its most important function.
Ken, thanks for leaving a comment on our blog! We miss you guys around here–especially now that we could walk to your old house! 🙂 We are enjoying home schooling, we did kindergarten last year with Reese and now first grade. I can only hope that we do half as good as you have done with your kids! Thanks for the example…
Thanks Dana. We are excited for you and your kids. We would love to get back there before to long. Kelly and Christian are planning to finish their degrees out in the west somewhere (probably Idaho), but Lorena and I expect to be back in Oregon as soon as the opportunity arises.