Can Robinson Curriculum Really Help Your Children Teach Themselves?

Perhaps you have never heard of Robinson Curriculum. However, you may have feelings that Robinson Curriculum may be able to help if you find yourself...

• feeling tired and frustrated with trying to keep up with teaching all of your children everything you think they need to know?
• wondering how to help your children become independent learners -- so they don't always rely on you to give them the answers -- but are able to know how to learn?
• wanting not only academic excellence but also the self-discipline and self-confidence that will give your children an enjoyment of learning that will last a lifetime?
• wishing you could spend less time being your children's "teacher" and more time being their parent?

Hi, I'm a home school mother of four, and I sure can say a resounding "yes" to wanting my children to be independent thinkers and learners! Not having to run around trying to stay one step ahead of their lessons sure sounds good, too!

For many of us home schooling parents, teaching our children how to learn can easily get pushed aside trying to teach them all of what to learn. What a shame! If our children know how to learn, and that they can learn anything they want or need to on their own, this opens up a world of information for their entire lives. There's a reason for that old adage that the teacher learns more than the student! In teaching themselves, they really master the material!

One complete home school curriculum choice that addresses these concerns of teaching our children how to learn is the Robinson Curriculum, which bills itself as a ?self-teaching? method. While not the only self-teaching method available on CD-ROM (another is A² Accelerated Achievement Complete Home School Curriculum), it is the oldest and perhaps the most widely used one that I am aware of. Keep reading below for more information and links so you can check out this complete home school curriculum for yourself.

Background Information on Robinson Curriculum

The Robinson Curriculum was started when Dr. Arthur Robinson had to take over teaching his six children after his wife died very suddenly. He had no time to teach the curriculum his wife had assembled (a great, complete home school curriculum but no time to teach it - hmm... sounds familiar!). As Dr. Robinson explains, "Gradually, with occasional coaching and help from me, they created a home school that actually needs no teacher and is extraordinary in its effectiveness." You can read more about the beginnings of the Robinson Curriculum in The Experiment Begins on their website.

Now, on to the specifics of this self-teaching complete home school curriculum.

The Basics of the Robinson Curriculum Program

• Level: K-12, though not grade-based. Students work at their own pace.
• Format: Literature-based, with over 250 classic books and other materials on the CD-ROMs. Unlike Switched-On-Schoolhouse Complete Home School Curriculum, it is not really a computer-based curriculum. Your child learns from reading the great literature you print out from the CDs, not by interacting with the computer.
• Method: Classical (in the sense that it teaches your child how to think based on reading and interacting with great literature of Western Culture).
• Focus: Building a strong foundation in the basics of math, writing, and reading.
• Worldview: Adaptable to be Christian or secular.
• Teacher time: Minimal since your children learn to teach themselves.
• Price: $195 for all 22 CDs (includes everything needed except Saxon math); printing out the books varies in costs depending on your printer and how you want to bind the books.
• Ease of use: Easy to learn and use, but some people have problems printing.

Why do users of this complete home school curriculum say it is so easy to use? It is not just that the child learns to teach himself. Another part is that, because the focus of the curriculum is on the basics, your child can really focus and develop foundational skills rather than trying to do too much. The reason for not adding more subjects -- whether it is geography, a foreign language, or some other subject -- is that every time you add a separate subject, you have to take that time from some other subject.

The Philosophy:
Rather than try to do lots of subjects only slightly well, the Robinson Curriculum, as a complete home school curriculum, prefers to give children time to focus on the core subjects (reading, writing, and arithmetic) with lots of time to read, read, read. Through the children's readings, they can learn many of these other subjects anyway. Those subjects that aren't covered? Robinson would say that these are not as important as teaching a child how to think and not really necessary as part of a complete home school curriculum, at least not right away. While I'm not sure I agree with everything he says, I found his article, Multiculturalism and Curricula, very thought-provoking and worth considering.

The Process:
The basic process with Robinson Curriculum is that you print out the books, have your children read through the materials at their own pace, and write about what they read, taking vocabulary tests on the books read. There are no grade levels. As your children read, write, and progress at their own pace, they will develop habits and skills that will help them master the material and really understand the material for themselves.

The Materials:
The CD's for this complete home school curriculum contain:

• Explanation on how to use the Robinson Curriculum
• 157 required reading books plus 77 optional books for lower grade levels
• Examinations for 49 of these books
• Math, vocabulary and phonics flash cards
• Grammar, spelling books
• Vocabulary worksheets
• Software for printing
• Complete Encyclopedia Britannica and Webster's Dictionary

Potential Advantages

Since this is a "self-teaching," complete home school curriculum, many of the benefits are obvious:

• your children will learn to think for themselves and discover how to find the answers without needing handholding throughout the day,
• you won't have to rush around trying to teach each child at various levels,
• each child can work at his own pace,
• the materials on the CD-ROMs are classic, well-written literature that have stood the test of time. You can read more about the Educational Results for yourself.
• You can read some comments from users on the Robinson website or scroll down to see more.

Some other benefits of using Robinson Curriculum as a self-directed home school curriculum as opposed to the more teacher-directed type of curriculum are less obvious but still important to consider:

• your children will develop self-confidence and discipline as they take responsibility for their own learning,
• many children often become more creative and inquisitive,
• you can spend very little time "teaching" your children and have more time just being their mom (or dad!).

Potential Disadvantages

Because the Robinson Curriculum emphasizes self-teaching and creating a learning-rich environment (as opposed to an entertainment-rich environment), it really is a holistic approach to life. I don't know about you, but as I read how to create such a learning-rich environment, the suggestions in themselves seem like disadvantages in some ways, if not downright impossible! Including...

• no television,
• no sugar,
• no computer until age 16 or so,
• five hours of school a day, most of it for the child to do on his own without any help from the parent,
• problems printing and binding the books that come on the CD-ROMs,
• the program sounds rigid or harsh as it is described on the Robinson website, like it isn't much fun, and
• your child might miss out on other great read-alouds or other materials not included in the Robinson curriculum, since the subjects covered in it are just the basics.

Dealing with Potential Disadvantages

Your first thought after reading this may be, "I could never do that!" or "My kids would never do that!" However, as I have done research into this method, and learned from people actually using Robinson Curriculum, I realize that there are numerous people who felt the same way who are now having a great home school experience with it. So, keep an open mind as you visit the Robinson Curriculum website and read in detail about their complete home school curriculum and philosophy. Also look at the Robinson Curriculum forumon the website. You might find someone else has asked your question or had your concern, and you can find out how others have met those challenges.

All that in mind, however, as with any complete home school curriculum, you may find some disadvantages to the Robinson Curriculum. How have other people worked through them? Let's take a look at some of them:

• The recommendation of no TV, sugar, or computer use until a certain age: these are not really essential to the curriculum, although many users do hold these out as goals to work towards. If you agree that these issues are important for your family, set your goals and work towards them. Other users don't feel these are essential to implement this complete home school curriculum.
• The length of the school day: again, users say over and over that you need to start with what your child can do, and work up incrementally year by year. You can help your child to learn how to learn, but it is a process.
• Printer problems: some people end up buying copies of the books at yard sales, buy a good printer, or buy them on-line already printed, such as online at Book Blessings .
• The difficulty of making our children figure out the answers on their own: If you ask me, this seems to be one of the biggest barriers to using the Robinson Curriculum. It can be hard to not rush in to answer our children's questions, and to let them really take responsibility for figuring out how to find the answers to what they need to know.
• The curriculum as Dr. Robinson presents it seems overly structured: this may be because of his unique situation (with being suddenly a single parent with many children to home school while continuing his research and running a small farm) or his personality (he is a professional scientist, and thus writes in a rather cut and dried -- this is the way it worked for us so if you want results like we had, do it this way -- sort of a style. Does that mean you can't adapt it? Of course not! You are the parent, and you can use the principles you feel comfortable, adapting them to your children's unique personalities.
• The idea that you'll miss out on other subjects or great literature that isn't included in Robinson Curriculum: Just because books aren't included in the curriculum, doesn't mean that you can't add them! Again, you are the parent, and you know what kind of education you want your kids to have. Know of a great read-aloud from another curriculum you've heard of? Great! Read it together at bedtime! Want to include more contemporary literature? No problem -- just let your kids read those books during their reading time. Still want to include science experiments in the younger grades than Robinson recommends? Fine, just make sure you do the things like math, writing, and some reading so that the core subjects are not neglected.

Knowing the long-term benefits behind the "self-education" approach will certainly help during any short-term struggles to move away from a teacher-taught education to a self-taught education with this complete home school curriculum. It is not uncommon for there to be difficulties for a while during this transition from relying on others and being entertained in order to learn, to relying on oneself and being truly self-educated. This is when you'll really want to have the support of others who have been there and come through the hard times! There are several user groups and you may want to join one to find out more from actual users.

For those of us who want the benefits of a home school curriculum that is self-taught, we may need to be willing to let our children explore, investigate and even struggle sometimes in their process of discovering and learning the answer. An enduring education means, after all, promoting both the desire to learn and the ability to learn.

If you are interested in finding a complete home school curriculum that will give your children an opportunity to learn how to teach themselves, consider the Robinson Curriculum method with an open mind. As I mentioned above, join a Robinson user group and learn from others who are actively using it. See if you want to deal with similar difficulties, and share their educational goals.

If you don't mind dealing with the potential problems, and are excited by the potential advantages, you may be very pleased with this complete home school curriculum.

System Requirements

PC or Mac Compatible.
For Windows:

• System Requirements - Win95, Win98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003
• 8 MB of RAM or greater (16 MB recommended)
• CD-ROM drive
• 386 CPU or greater
• 5.5 MB of disk space
• Printer

FOR Mac:

• 68030 processor or better
• System 7.1 or better
• 8 megabytes of memory or more
• An ImageWriter printer or better. ImageWriter works but is not entirely satisfactory.

Sound overwhelming? Impossible? Or like the lifeline to the home life and educational life you've been hoping for you and your child? This curriculum is not for everyone. However, if you want to encourage self-education through a complete home school curriculum with a focus on reading lots of classic literature, writing, and arithmetic as the foundation of independent and lifelong learning, this may be the curriculum for you. We've assembled a few comments from some actual users to help you understand the curriculum better.

Comments:
If you have comments that you would like for us to post, fill in the form below and we will post selected comments that show both the advantages and potential disadvantages. We believe that an informed choice will be a better choice. Above all, we want to help you to inspire your child's success!

RC is soooo easy to implement with a large family. It is also easy to adapt to the children's various skills interests, weaknesses and personalities. We modify and supplement the reading list and writing requirements to suit each child and the math is perfectly self paced. The kids roll along on their own, giving mom the opportunity to be the mommy God made her rather than having to play teacher all day. RC is also super effective. Because the kids are working at their own pace, year round, they are able to reach their potential. Colette in NM, user of Robinson Curriculum

It took me YEARS to come to the realization that Reading, Writing and Arithmetic really does encompass ALL subjects...The greatest minds to EVER live got their educations from reading, writing and arithmetic. Period. Einstein didn't have pretty pictures. Florence Nightingale didn't have multiple choice, brightly colored balloons to fill in. Washington, Lincoln, Jackson... Newton, Plato, Paul the Apostle, John the Apostle -- ANYONE of greatness from the past, before pretty color printing, learned what they knew from reading it, copying it, learning to write their own, and studying mathematics. Black and white pages train a child's brain to seek out the information. When there is not an illustration, a child's imagination will take over. Colored pages are designed to entertain. If you want your child to be entertained by outside stimulation while learning, then you will not be happy with RC. If a quality education woven into the child through a classical and proven technique is your goal, then RC is well able to produce it for you. Dana in Texas, user of Robinson Curriculum

We choose to use RC as it seemed a perfect fit for our family. It really is quite different from other curriculum. For one thing, there is no real grade levels. No kindergarten, 1st grade, etc. It is based on skill level, not on what age a child happens to be. I appreciate that because each child is different and may learn at a different pace. Laura in Washington, user of Robinson Curriculum

Disclaimer: We have tried to make this information accurate and informative, but we make no legal guarantee. You may want to research companies further before choosing to buy any of the products mentioned. The information provided may not reflect the opinions of the management of Home-School-Curriculum-Advisor.com.

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