One characteristic I've observed with non-parents in our circles is that they have strong opinions about pedagogy and child-rearing (despite having zero firsthand knowledge of anything other than their own childhoods and a lot of extremist literature).

Once people have kids they tend to fall into one of two camps. Some are completely uncurious about pedagogy, completely outsourcing it to their local public school or catholic school (if they are poor/middle class) or to their "elite" private school (if they are PMC/upper class). Others have read some theory and have extreme views as to the "correct" model.

My own opinion is that there isn't one optimal pedagogy. Different kids have different needs. Boys need one style, girls need a different style. Academic boys and nature boys need different styles. etc.

I think the 'optimal' program (if such a thing existed) would be like the Mixed Martial Arts of pedagogy, pulling the best math curricula, best outdoorsmanship curricula, best reading curricula, etc.

I say this as someone whose kids have tried outdoor school, homeschooling, classical christian, and independent Catholic schools and been dissatisfied with all of them.

What did you like and dislike about each approach?

Outdoor school: it's great at teaching kids how to use their bodies, mixed age, remain engaged without screens or toys, music is a core aspect. Dislikes: 75% of the parents are shitlibs, zero learning of reading/math/writing/etc, mixed gender.

Independent Catholic: mostly conservative parents, mostly well-adjusted kids, good activities outside of pedagogy (team sports, weekly mass, robotics lab), decent if not good catechesis. Dislikes: it's a traditional school with the Mann/Dewey problems (regimented schedule, age-segregated classrooms, curriculum targets the middle third of the ability bell curve, mixed gender.

Classical Christian: mostly conservative parents, mostly well-adjusted kids, reading and math curriculum were extremely solid, definitely the impression the school is training an army of soldiers for Christ (not a bunch of worker bees). Dislikes, mixed gender, age segregated schools, school is heavily feminized (teachers are mostly young women, boys expected to adhere to social norms designed for women), catechesis becomes extremely Protestant (which is fine if that's your thing), zero emphasis on physical/athletic pursuits.

Homeschooling: Look, we're all partial to homeschooling, but in the case of traditional schooling there is a 'good cop'/'bad cop' dynamic between the parents and the teacher. In the case of home schooling, there is just the two parents and thus you can run into a 'good cop'/'bad cop' dynamic where one parent wants the kid to study hard and the other parent is fine with the kid playing around. This can be tough on the marriage. The other downside is that for extremely extroverted kids, homeschooling is isolating and stifling unless the parent (i.e. Mom) is extremely intentional about setting up co-ops, playgroups, etc. Some parents just weren't built to be teachers (sad!).

>>2148

> they have strong opinions about pedagogy and child-rearing (despite having zero firsthand knowledge of anything other than their own childhoods

I have strong opinions about pedagogy because I remember and regularly reflect upon my rich and varied childhood, and have taught every type of student from toddler to senior citizen, special needs to PhD.

what are the pedagogical approaches that speak to you when dealing with above-average kids?

The generic, yet correct, answer is "individual attention and lesson planning", but this applies even more so the farther above average the student.

More concretely, the smarter someone is, the less you can punish them, but the more you can contextualize them. Openly discussing the place in history and society of people like them (i.e., the smart fraction), and the obligations and advantages this entails, addresses the life planning panic spiral to which the more intelligent are proportionately susceptible. It is not unusual to find smart ten year olds who have a strong sense of the future, over which they are correspondingly more anxious than their less intelligent age peers. Providing a sense of actionable opportunity is important when a person's propensity to imagine their future exceeds their experience.

Given that they are not then learning things by fiat of their parents, instructor, or government, but because they have (options for) a role, path, and place, this establishes a firm ground of purpose. From that firm ground, they can then be pushed, hard when possible, to exercise their full capabilities. Individualization of lesson planning then largely is a matter of sensitivity to pressure and recovery, according to their natural capacity for such exercise. In this way, it is very similar to athletic coaching, but operating within a vastly higher multidimensional space. They should feel what it is like to do math problems with such intensity that their brains physically ache, no less than they should know what it is like to run until they collapse, gasping for breath.

Yet further specifically, there are substrate skills that generically behoove intellectual pursuits, like learning to write, type, speak, and read well, which very often only develop in spite of education, rather than because of it. If a normal student cannot spell, it is usually enough to let them limp on indefinitely, because no amount of worksheets will impart generalized competency in language root extraction, phonetic->lexical heuristic memorization, or even pattern matching on common orthography. Smart kids can be informed that there is A Way, and you can become proficient if you follow this training process.

As a final note, learning is often seen as a soft pursuit, but it is in fact a predatory act. One is not _conforming_, despite that the knowledge is being transmitted, one is _forming_, shaping, extracting, hunting, discovering the shape of that knowledge within oneself. This competitive, expeditionary mindset is crucial, especially when guiding boys.

>>2160
Sample lesson kernel which can encompass many winding detours: The Collatz Conjecture.

Requires only basic arithmetic and the concept of functions to explain, then send them off to hand calculate it, ideally over a sprawling chalkboard or whiteboard. Provides a central thread for introducing arbitrarily advanced number theory.