Posted on 07/27/2013 11:42:05 AM PDT by AlmaKing
I've been looking for a homeschool curriculum for my 6 year old. Khan Academy popped as a possibility, so I read through the website information thoroughly. I found a page which described the teachers' backgrounds and post a few below. It seems like these folks have liberal backgrounds. Many come from Google, Yahoo, various non-profits, arts programs, and other non-traditional backgrounds. I like creativity in teaching and learning, but I'm hesitant to use this site after seeing these backgrounds.
---
Elizabeth Content Scaling
Elizabeth works with math teachers, tutors, and professors to ensure Khan Academy's exercises comprehensively and rigorously cover the Common Core Standards so that students and teachers can easily find content appropriate to their level.
---
Craig Dean of Infrastructure
Craig is focused on the infrastructure that supports Khan Academy, from its databases to its developer tools.
Before joining, Craig worked for Google, where he was the first employee hired by Larry and Sergey.
---
Charlotte Manager of External Relations
Charlotte focuses on Khan Academy’s external relationships.
Prior to joining Khan Academy, Charlotte was the Business Manager and Director of Admissions of The School for Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL) in Washington, DC. Charlotte was the first hire at SEGL and helped open the school. She received her BA from Haverford College.
---
James Software Engineer
James keeps improving site performance and creating new features for the Khan Academy.
Previously James was a lead engineer at education.com, ran a non-profit delivering an email system to the developing world, and was a math teacher in the Peace Corps in Tanzania. He received two degrees from CMU in Physics and Computer Science.
---
Chris Software Engineer
Chris wields his experience with highly reliable, multilingual websites to support lifelong learning through Khan Academy.
Before joining, Chris spent a few years building the Yahoo! homepage.
-----
Joel Computer Science Beloved Leader
Known alternately as "Dear Father" and "Eternal Leader", Joel provides computer science tools to his thankful subjects, who are the happiest people in the world and love him dearly.
---
Alex Software Engineer
Alex believes in interactive, immersive education. Every day he brings science fiction just a bit closer to reality.
Prior to Khan Academy, Alex helped make peer-to-peer car sharing a reality with Getaround.
---
GMTA.
Can’t believe it took this long to find a comment on it.
Then again, many people don’t even read the excerpts....
Reading this thread just made me realize something.
My mother is a retired teacher with tons of experience from elementary to teenage and normal and special kids. History, English and Math. She is very conservative. Doesn’t go in for all the BS for “educating” and special education that’s been the rave for 20+ years.
Just the other day she pointed out some workbooks she’s had a while that she loves for math and reading. I also remember well several of her most beloved companies for various texts.
She should’ve made a small business of giving out advice on curricula, including what companies to pick and choose from.
CoreKnowledge.org
NOT to be confused with Common Core. Entire sequence downloadable for free.
http://www.themathpage.com/
Free, but takes donations. I learned stuff on this site no one has ever been able to explain before.
http://www.sitesforteachers.com/index.html?id=tlsbooks
A portal of free and fee-based material ordered by popularity. The “Reading A-Z” is fee based, but get on their email list because once a year they open each site for free. It took me all day, but I managed to download Writing A-Z.
http://www.schoolhousetech.com/
Free basic math worksheet generator.
Learner.org
Free. Awesome.
http://www.schoolexpress.com/
Haven't looked at it in years, but each week they'd send a thematic unit, and I collected them all.
McGuffy for reading. There is a place that is reprinting all of their stuff; I'll get that to you later.
Don’t know about Kahn...I homeschooled many years ago. We made up our own curriculum once we hit the 4th grade, Saxon Math, A Beka grammar, Beautiful Feet series, etc (you get the picture.)
But in the younger years I found Calvert to be an excellent curriculum. Haven’t looked at them in years, but was very pleased, back in the “olden” days with their curriculum.
But looking back, I was too concerned with curriculum. I relaxed more, and more, as we went along. The “kid” made it through college and grad school without a hitch. If I had to do it over again, I’d use a math curriculum, a grammar/spelling/writing curriculum, and then we’d just read a lot of books and discuss them for history, science, humanities, etc.
Thanks for your posts. You are contributing to the education of a 6 year old and his parents also. This is why I’m a member of FR.
That’s why I posted that excerpt. Several of their contributors were trying to be cute in the self-descriptions, but this guy does seem to be creepy.
In my 30 years in engineering, I’ve found that there are just some strange birds who just want guru status and followers.
That’s guy’s got some serious “issues”, like Jim Jones and the other cult types.
Why can’t the Koch Brothers pony up for a conservative/libertarian alternative to the Khan Academy? I mean they’ve wasted billions supporting a bunch of phony RINOs.
An online “school” resource that supports/buttresses home and private schools run by conservatives would be pretty awesome
I think you’re paranoid
Just play the games and work on those math skills and tune into some calculus lectures if you can stand it
Personally I like PLATO education courses for math and science, Cicero for History, and Discovery Education Streaming for just about everything
They surely could have, if they’d wanted to.
I used to think that all self-made billionaires weren’t all that stupid, but in recent years, I have my doubts. I’ve often wondered why they’ve backed the phony RINOs they have, too. Makes me wonder where their beliefs really lie vs public perception.
I just saw that your kiddo is 6 yr old
Check out IXl math for math skills, the site has the standards for every state, my kids have enjoyed using IXL for 3 years now, with its scorekeeping gameboards by grade, and e-stickers
Join Homeschool Buyers Co-Op for great group discounts on education programs and materials
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
that’s IXL math, I made a typo
Homeschool Buyer Co-Op price has a big discount
Both you and Alma are correct in your comments and I was aware of the Mongolian origin (Ghengis and Kubla, obviously). But more often than not these days when you see the name it seems to have a Pakistani or an Indian Muslim attached to it.
Who cares, if your kid is there to bone up on his math?
I had taught school before I homeschooled. By the end of (his) 10th grade, I was teaching much, much differently than I did to start. You really cannot ruin your kid, you know. They are avid learners, and all you have to do is find out what they care about and FEED them. I’ll drop you a private note.
Thank you for the resources.
khan academy has lots of math videos to help with homes schooling or kids who need extra information to understand math. They are not an academy per se.
Math is neither liberal nor conservative. However, they have videos on economics and history, which could be biased (I haven’t watched them).
They are worried about the interaction he will miss with others his age.
* * *
Is there a homeschooling association in your area? Just g**gle around a bit and you can find out. I am homeschooling our twin boys, who are about to enter “first grade.” Social interaction was my only real worry concerning their schooling. We are members of a great homeschooling association (Sonoma County Homeschool Nonprofit, if anyone else in the area has need of such an association), and through it, I started a weekly playgroup for kids age 4 - 6. I didn’t know a soul when I posted the ad to start the playgroup, but a bunch of people answered, and now we have about 12 kids in the group (analogous to a small “class” of kids) and my kids have lots of friends. So be a little proactive, and your kids can have lots of friends! (And I’ve made some great friends among the moms, which is terrific too. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.