I'm bumping this one because like others, I'm doing the 'enrichment' scramble this time of year.
Discovered today that our local public library affords us access to
Mango. It seems to be focused more on
conversational languages, as opposed to written ones.
DD11 and I have come to the (sad) conclusion that school is basically turning out to be for teaching her how to efficiently complete tasks that she doesn't particularly want to do, or those that seem pointless or repetitive in the extreme. And we had such high hopes for high school. Darn you, spiraling pedagogy!! My kid learned Newton's laws of motion and how to identify metaphors the FIRST time, thank you very much.
Anyway. Rant off.
DD is interested in Greek literature after reading some excerpts from the Odyssey, and wants to learn to READ Greek. I realize that the Mango programs are probably not the best choice there, but they do have the attractive property of being, well... free.
If she seems serious about the interest in a few weeks' time, then maybe I'll consider investing in something more serious for self-study.
At this point, ANYTHING that gives her a little self-pacing and autonomy is much needed, however. Poor kiddo. High school is turning out to be more
work than before... but without a commensurate jump in the expectations of the underlying
thought devoted to that work. No more analysis or critical thinking is expected than ever before, in other words. She took a 'senior' elective that is apparently regarded as a "killer" course last term (Economics), and frankly, it was
still mostly memorization-based, and she aced it. Slam dunk for the A+-- it was just a total pain in the neck to keep nitpicking for the 98% all through it. (Not worth it IMO... but what do I know.) DD feels terribly disappointed. I sure hope that the AP coursework hasn't been similarly watered down to remove all traces of analysis, extension, and integrative learning. But I'm becoming fairly cynical about the whole thing; perhaps school is merely a means to an end (ie-- a stellar official public school transcript). Bleh.
